i've been homesick for you since we met
by maddieclaybourne
Summary: during an alien invasion (seriously), maxie and lulu somehow wind up in 1942 where they meet steve rogers before he's transformed into captain america and james 'bucky' buchanan barnes - gh/avengers crossover
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: The idea for this story was inspired by the 2011 Woody Allen film 'Midnight In Paris.' The majority of this takes place during the timeline of 'Captain America: The First Avenger,' but will circle back [eventually] to 'The Avengers' timeline and present day. Also, thank you to Ayshen for being the bestest bestiewife and beta-reader for this._

**~*~i've been homesick for you since we met~*~**

**pairing: maxie jones/steve rogers and lulu spencer/bucky barnes, aside**

**fandoms: general hospital/captain america**

**summary: and i never (never) saw you coming, and i'll never (ever) be the same/or during an alien invasion (seriously), maxie and lulu somehow wind up in 1942 where they meet steve rogers before he's transformed into captain america and his pal james 'bucky' buchanan barnes**

**rating: t, but will be bumped up to m for later chapters**

**~*~prologue~*~**

It was indescribable what was happening on the streets of Manhattan.

Cars were turned over, buildings were collapsing into piles of cement and brick, glass from the famous skyscrapers was everywhere, store fronts were smashed, small fires were breaking out everywhere, and if you _dared_ to look up at the otherwise clear sky, you would see a large black hole and these _things_ – large, scaly and lizard-like – pouring from said black hole.

The sounds – the screaming, the zaps, the explosions – they all sounded like they were coming from a video game, but they were _real_; painfully so.

And in the middle of the chaos was a tiny platinum blonde with roundly shaped diamond eyes, definitely _not_ dressed in her tight fitting black and white dress with its peplum hem and six inch strappy black wedges, for running away from the disaster zone that was now downtown. At least a block ahead of her was her best friend; only slightly taller, her hair a darker shade of blonde and eyes a forest green flecked with streaks of hazel who was dressed only slightly more appropriately in dark skinny jeans, brown boots and an off the shoulder green sweater.

"Seriously," Maxie Jones huffed, her breathing heavy and shallow. "I have a heart condition, you bitch! Slow the fuck down!"

"_Slow down_?" Lulu Spencer whipped her head around, forest green eyes blazing and narrowed. "Are you serious right now, Maxie? If we slow down, if we stop moving, we're going to die!"

"Well, if we're going to die can we at least hit up H&M? Because my very stylish corpse cannot, _I repeat_, cannot be seen with," She finally caught up to the other blonde, her hand waving up and down her frame. "Yours if you're going to be wearing _that_."

"You're hopeless." Lulu rolled her eyes, grabbing for her hand and dragging her along as she broke out into a sprint.

As they rounded a corner, Maxie stumbling into Lulu's back from teetering on her heels, their eyes went wide and their bodies started to shake. Surveying the damage that was already done was one of those _things_; at least six feet tall, black eyes, gold and scaly skin gleaming and what looked like a gun in its hand.

"Come on." Lulu hissed, eyes darting in every direction, hoping to find an escape route. "We have to try and get away."

"That's your brainy idea? We have to try and get away?" Maxie deadpanned. "Clearly, the famous Luke Spencer 'planning' genes or whatever, skipped a generation."

"Says the girl whose parents are international spies." Lulu snarked.

"At least you kinda, sort of knew your parents!" Maxie whacked her on the arm with her purse. "Mine were always MIA off doing whatever in, like, the jungle or in some foreign country that's not even on a map! So, like, when _exactly_ were either of those deadbeats going to teach me how to be freaking 007?"

"Well, when you come up with a better idea, let me know. Till then, just shut up and get down. If he-whatever that is – can't see us, it can't shoot us."

"_On the ground?"_

"Don't start complaining about your dress or your shoes and how much they cost or how you can't ruin your hair. Seriously, don't."

"But..." "Maxie!"

Before they could keep arguing, they heard the sound of glass crunching underfoot and then there was a slight growl that came closer and closer, the low rumble becoming more and more deafening.

One of the alien lizard things was advancing on them, gun shaped weapon pointed and ready to aim.

"Oh my God." Maxie repeated over and over, desperately clinging to Lulu's arm. "Okay, um, so, like, this is it," She rambled. "So this is when we confess stuff to each other, right? Bare our souls and all that stuff? Because, um," She let out a shaky exhale, wild diamond eyes connecting with Lulu's frazzled forest green. "I totally knew that Brook was trying to pass off her baby as yours when she was being your surrogate."

"**WHAT?**" Lulu shrieked. "You knew? The whole..." The words died in her throat as the sound of a zap blasted through the air. Thankfully, somehow, it had missed; sailing just barely over their heads.

"Eeek!" Maxie yelped, inwardly cursing at her lame choice of last words.

The thing was _obviously_ not happy about having missed its targets and it crept closer, making the two young women grasp at each other, so tightly they weren't sure if they were breathing. They closed their eyes tight, tears welling up and preparing for the gasp of air they managed to take in to be their last when suddenly a loud crash and the familiar sound of a gun –_ an actual gun_ – being fired thundered in their ears.

"Are we dead?" Maxie whispered, eyes still closed. "Like, are we surrounded by the white light? Are Georgie and Robin here?"

Lulu took a steadying breath and cracked one eye open. Whatever that thing was, was no longer advancing on her and Maxie like it was a starving lion that had found two wounded gazelles. The alley way they were in was bare; except for a man – no, two men – one in a skin-tight blue suit with red boots on his feet and matching gloves on his hands, bending down to pick up what looked like a shield and another dressed like a solider, guns strapped to his chest and back, which he was re-loading.

They were alive! She and Maxie were alive!

"We're alive." She whispered, relief flooding her tone and both eyes opening wide. "Maxie, we're alive. We're alive." She repeated over and over.

"Ow!" She hissed when Maxie pinched her arm. "Sorry." The other blonde was unapologetic. "I just, you know, wanted to make sure we _really_ were alive. Don't get your panties in a twist. Jee..." She didn't finish, a low and appreciative whistle escaping her lips. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing right now?"

"Really?" Lulu deadpanned, knowing Maxie was referring to the men that had saved them.

"What? I'm not dead. I'm just seriously re-considering my thoughts on spandex." Without shame the tiny blonde let her eyes roam over the taller of the two, dressed in what was akin to the American Flag. "Because," Her tongue slipped out to lick her lips. "Helloooo!"

"Ladies, are you all right?" He asked, gripping what in fact was a shield; red and white with a blue background surrounding a white star in the center. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"I'm not sure. See, I have a heart..." She couldn't finish before Lulu jabbed her in the stomach. "Hey!" She screeched, eyes glaring. "We're okay." Lulu assured, mustering up the best smile she could. "Thanks to you."

"Just doin' what we're ordered to do." The one dressed like a solider said. "Though," His lips curled rakishly as he raked his fingers through his messy dark hair. "Savin' pretty dames like the two of you make this mess easier to get through."

"Yeah," She drawled out, unimpressed and brows furrowing at his use of the word 'dames.'

"Bucky," The taller man shook his head. "Now's not the time to flirt. I apologize for Sargent Barnes' forwardness ma'am...

"Don't apologize." Maxie interrupted. "And, um, just so you know, _you_ can be as forward with _me_ as you want." She winked and even through the soot and dirt that covered his chiseled cheekbones, she could see his skin flush bright red.

"Ah," Suddenly a new voice entered the fray; this one low and sinister and hinting at some kind of accent. "The Sargent and The Solider. On the ground with out the rest of their little playmates to pose any sort of a challenge to me."

"Loki," They both said at the same time, stances snapping into battle formation in an instant.

"And who do we have here?" The God's gleaming electric green eyes were honed in on Maxie and Lulu.

"Seriously," Maxie gaped, taking in the black leather and the green swirling cape along with the golden helmet complete with horns jutting out. "Halloween was, like, five months ago. But, _for real,_ Lady Gaga – wherever she is right now – is all your outfit is_ soooooo _2010."

"You dare mock me," He growled, pointing his glowing scepter at the pair. "You insolent mortal! I've had enough of your inferior race! I am a God! All of you people are beneath me, and it's time you be put in your place!"

"Brother!" A booming voice literally had the fragile ground shaking beneath all of them. In a swirl of a red cape appeared a wind-blown hulking man, standing taller than even the one in the spandex suit who had to be at least six feet. "It is over." His voice was softer, almost caring as he approached the pale black-haired man. "Do not go causing any further damage."

"You're surrounded, Reindeer Games." Came the metallic sounding voice of Iron Man as he was joined by a curvaceous red head in a tight fitting black cat suit, a man with short sandy hair in a matching suit and a lumbering giant green monster.

"Finally, someone I recognize around here." Maxie grumbled before hissing, "Ow!" and rubbing her arm where Lulu had pinched her. "What the hell was that for?"

"Shut up. For once in your life, shut up." She ground out through gritted teeth. "You want to get out of here alive, don't you?"

They stayed huddled together, their eyes unable to look away from the scene before them; the blonde man in the red cape with shoulder length hair advancing, slowly and carefully on the the pale black-haired man. But apparently he wasn't going to give up that easily, before either of them could blink, they were suddenly [somehow] right in front of him, his arms wrapped tight around both of them and using them like a human shield.

"Hey!" Maxie screeched, squirming and kicking her feet. "What the hell Marilyn Manson!"

"Fuck," Iron Man cursed, glowing eyes from his helmet darting toward the blonde in the spandex suit.

"Brother, your quarrel lies not with these fair maidens of Midgard, but with me and Odin. Release them and let us work through our differences. I am pleading with you."

"Your pleas mean nothing to me. If you wish to take me back to Asgard, you will do so at the risk of these mortals perishing."

"Um, what?" Maxie squeaked, eyes growing wide. "Perish is another word for die, right? Cause, um, seriously, I'm sure you guys could work something out. Something that doesn't involve me and Lulu dying. There's so much I haven't done yet. I haven't become the editor of _Cosmo_, replaced Heidi as the host of _Project Runway_, make Tim Gunn my sassy gay BFF..."

"Silence!" Loki roared as his scepter began to glow, springing the heroes surrounding him and the mortals he was using as his human shield, into action.

Before the flash of the bright blue light across their eyes could register with Maxie or Lulu, everything around them went black.


	2. Chapter 2

**~*~chapter one~*~**

The card-stock [once again] felt heavy in Steve Rogers limp hand as he slowly trudged through the familiar streets of his Brooklyn neighborhood. It was the fourth [maybe, the fifth?] time he'd been stamped with the dreaded 4F in regards to his trying [yet again] to join the Army. Collecting scrap metal in his little red wagon just wasn't all that appealing to the young man.

He knew [deep down] it was a long shot, joining up. He'd seen the men coming out of the recruitment office; head and shoulders taller than him, arms twice as big, strapping in a way he never was or could ever be.

And hours from now he'd have to watch Bucky ship out; uniform neatly pressed, hat snug on top of his thick, dark hair, buttons gleaming. Just the thought made his stomach churn uncomfortably. Swallowing, he pushed his shaking fingers through his thin blonde hair, and wheezed as his lungs struggled to take in a heavy breath, his eyes blurring at the edges.

Turning the corner into an alley, he stopped short from sitting on a stack of apple boxes when his ears picked up the sound of a low moan. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up; the sound all too familiar. How many times had he heard the same pitiful whine escape his bloodied lip after bullies took him to town before Bucky would inevitably show up to save his skinny behind?

Careful of his steps, he gasped when he saw the source of the sound.

Lying on the cold, dirty slab of concrete was a dame; a _beautiful _one at that. His breath hitched in his throat, and his cheeks burned with heat that went all the way to the tips of his ears, he was sure. She looked like Sleeping Beauty, the animated picture that was a hit with all of the girls in the orphanage he and Bucky grew up in. Her hair wasn't golden or nearly as long as the Princess', it was done up in a strange way that had his brows furrowing as he crept closer. It was cut short, but not in the newly fashionable pageboy style. It's edges were jagged and cropped, not all one length.

Her state of dress, though, that was _even more_ strange.

The hemline of her dress... Well, he was sure he'd never seen _that_ much of a lady's legs before. Outside of a Bettie Page pin-up poster, anyway. He felt like he should take off his jacket and cover the miles of milky white skin. He couldn't deny, though, that his fingers shook with the ache to reach out and feel if it was as smooth as it looked.

Shaking his head, he scolded himself internally, willing his eyes back up to her face. Long, thick velvet lashes fluttered before her eyelids – covered with a shimmering shadow – opened to reveal rounded eyes, that even though they were dazed, still sparkled like the facets of a diamond.

"Ugh..." She managed, slowly pushing herself up by her elbows.

"Ma'am?" How he addressed her he didn't know; he was always a fumbling mess of stuttering around women.

Her perfectly plucked eyebrows shot up and her mouth – that until that moment, he hadn't realized was the perfect bow shape and glistening as if her lips were the petals of a rose – fell open. _**"Ma'am?"**_She all but shrieked, making him wince. It wasn't from the volume of her voice or its high pitch, it was from the fact that he'd gone and made a fool of himself in front of a beautiful woman, yet again.

"Sorry..." His apology or the start of it, was quick to be drowned by her sharp voice. "Don't say you're sorry; just point me and that hapless fashion victim, I for some reason, call a best friend in the direction of the nearest bar."

"H-hapless fashion victim?" Steve questioned, brows furrowing. There wasn't anyone else in the alley way but the two of them.

"Yeah, you know..." Her voice trailed off as she turned to look over her shoulder. There wasn't anyone there; just the brick wall that showed where the alley ended. "Oh my God." She breathed, sounding like there was punctuation after each word. "Lulu!" She scrambled up to her feet, his head ducking down at the flash of thigh that appeared from her tight skirt riding up. "Lulu!"

"Oh, God." She repeated over and over. He recognized the signs of hyperventilation. With his string of health problems he was well reversed in the symptoms. "Ma..." He stopped himself, as he approached her, gently placing his hand on her wrist. "Miss, it'll be all right."

"Oh, yeah," She remarked dryly, rolling her eyes. "That's easy for _you_ to say; you didn't just wake up in some gross alley way that ruined your $500 BCBG Max Azria dress with a splitting headache and _without_ your best friend, who was right there with you when this crazy alien thing tried to make you his lunch! But that's not even the _worst_ part! Like, we got saved by these two guys, both were total hotties, and then the next thing you know; we're human shields for this Marilyn Manson wannabe and then he's got this blue glow stick thingy and now I'm here!"

Steve's head swam as he struggled to keep up with her rapid speech. Though, honestly, his mind was still fixated that the dress she was wearing cost $500. He fought hard to keep his mouth from falling open when she first said that. He knew women prided themselves on being fashionable, but there was a war going on! That money could [should] have gone to the boys fighting overseas, trying to stop the Nazis and the other Axis Powers.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" Maybe it was the swear or just the sheer volume of her voice, but Steve was snapped out of his daze. "How is this my life? I wake up in some gross alley way with a splitting headache and I've got no bars? No bars?" Her head tilted upward. "Is this punishment for every awful thing I've ever done? Is that what this is? Because, seriously, Robin and Georgie you couldn't have just, like, I don't know; forced me to wear Lulu's clothes because she ruined mine in the laundry or something? Maybe not get a mani/pedi every two weeks?"

"Miss," Steve rubbed the back of his neck, blinking because this dame sure was a strange duck. "So," She interrupted him once again. "What carrier are you on? T-Mobile, _obviously_, isn't getting any more of my hard earned cash if they can't manage to get me at least one freaking bar. Oooh!" Her eyes were suddenly bright, and his breath hitched in his throat, the sight of them gleaming was almost too much for his frail body to take. "Do you have an iPhone? I've thought about getting the five, but rumor has it Tony Stark's coming out with the latest Stark phone by Christmas, so I'm thinking of holding out for that. Or, you know, I might just keep my Samsung and spend the money I'd use for a new phone on something better," She clapped her hands excitedly and her whole face was lit up, like the glowing lights of the Great White Way at night; it was a sight for his sore eyes, for sure. "Shoes!"

"C-carrier?" His brows pinched together in confusion.

"Um, yeah, you know cell phone carrier." She dangled a small object that he'd never seen before in front of his face.

"Cell phone?" He blinked, scratching the back of his neck.

"Are you kidding me right now? What, were you raised by wolves or something? Or were your parents, like, techno-phobes? Oh wait, are you, like one of those Amish kids who's run away from the farm or whatever? You know like that show on _TLC; Ditching Amish_ or whatever the hell it was called."

"N-no." He stammered. "I'm from Brooklyn."

"Ohhhhh," She elongated the word. "So you're, like, such a hipster you're against all forms of technology or something?"

"H-Hipster?"

"Are you just going to repeat everything I say?"

"I'm just trying to sort this all out. I hoped to be alone after I got rejected for the," His cheeks heated with shame and he bent his head low. "Fourth time from the Army, so I figured an alley was the best place to go and that's when I saw you lying on the ground."

"The Army?" He expected the look that graced her beautifully sharp features; the one that said, _"A skinny no-nothing runt like you? Joining up? Ha!"_

"I can't just send my best pal to the front lines all by his lonesome. Somebody's gotta watch his back, and who better than me? It's like my Ma always said," A lump grew in his throat at the thought of his mother; her soft blonde hair, the big blue eyes he got from her, her strength and gentleness. "You always stand up."

"Um..." Her round eyes blinked slowly. "Yeah, sure. But I think those guys – the ones I mentioned earlier, the total hotties – and their spandex buddies, including Iron Man, took care of those weird alien thingies."

"_Aliens?_ Miss, I think we should get you to a doctor. You must've hit your head pretty hard."

"I don't need a doctor! What I need is to find my best friend! Cause while she may be a hapless fashion victim, think channeling _Rapunzel_ is a good idea when it comes to her hair, have awful taste in husbands who screw the chick who's supposed to be being their surrogate and then goes along with her fucked up plan to pass off _her_ skanky-ass baby as their own, and can be totally annoying and not let me have any fun with our super hot neighbor who's got this problem with wearing clothes, she's still my best friend! I, like," She huffed, the sound making some of her bangs fly upward to reveal a glimpse of her smooth forehead. "Need her." Her voice was small as she blinked back the wetness pouring into her diamond eyes.

"There's a police station just up the block. I'll come with you to file a report."

"Yeah, because the cops aren't _already_ looking for, like, a million people right now. Did you not hear me? The city's like a warzone! It's _Independence Day_ or that _Olympus is Dead_ movie or whatever it was called with Gerard Butler!"

Steve didn't know what to say to that, so all he could do was blink repeatedly. "What?" She demanded, hands on her slim hips. "You don't believe me? Cause, um, unless you just woke up from a coma or are secretly one of those creepy alien thingies disguised as a human, how can you _not_ know what the hell I'm talking about? Ugh!" She groaned, reaching for his hand and dragging him out of the alley.

He struggled to keep up with her face paced steps; his lungs squeezing tight as he started to sway and wheeze. He would need his inhaler after this. And for the first time, he wouldn't be embarrassed about sucking down the sweet relief of his medicine in front of a dame. Even one as beautiful as this one.

"What. The. Actual. Fuck." His ears burned from hearing her swear. It was wrong to feel the burn of heat sizzle in his veins from the vulgar language leaving her perfectly formed bow lips.

Her eyes were wide as they scanned every inch of the street in front of them. It was like she hadn't seen the small paper boys calling out for the _Times_ and the _Ledger_. Or the policemen directing traffic with their whistles bursting through the air every few seconds. Or the kids playing stick ball and scattering off in every direction when the ball flew through a window, the glass crashing.

Her wide eyes turned on him. "Where am I?"

"Brooklyn." He answered simply.

"Um... yeah, I've watched all three seasons of _Girls_, okay? I know what Brooklyn looks like. This is not..." Her voice was drowned by a paper boy shouting in his thick Brooklyn accent, "GET YER TIMES! ROOSEVELT CALLS FOR A DOZEN MORE TROUPES TO SHIP OUT! CHAMBERLAIN MAKES MUNICH PACT WITH HITLER! READ ALL ABOUT IT! EXTRA, EXTRA!"

"Hitler?" She all but shrieked. "Hitler? Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but... What year is it?" It comes out in a rush, almost like she can't believe she's even asking the question.

"It's 1942."


	3. Chapter 3

**~*~chapter two~*~**

"Hey, fatheads!" Bucky shouts, eyes blazing and hands curling into fists. It's a familiar scene; a crowd of rough looking types in a circle looking down at something. He's sure Steve's in the center of the circle, curled in on himself, but still trying to come out swinging cause he just doesn't know when to quit.

"Climb up your thumb, Barnes!" One shouts back. "That skinny palooka you run with ain't here."

His jaw ticks, anger bubbling inside his veins. Pushing them out of the way, he finds the slicked back greaser was right. Lying on the ground wasn't Steve, but a dame. She was downright gorgeous. All long silken goldenrod hair; eyelashes that laid perfectly across her cheeks, pert lips stained with a raspberry tint, but man if she wasn't dressed so strange.

He recognized the material of her trousers to be jeans, and he had to shake his head. Not even Kate Hepburn wore jeans.

"Back up!" He shouts at the bullies. "She needs air! So why don't all of you go climb up your thumbs and get lost!"

"How bout you make us?" Another steps up, getting right in Bucky's face. "You think because you got that uniform on _you're_ better than us? Cause you ain't. Maybe a good one side to your face with knock some sense into that thick head-a yers." He cracked his knuckles.

"Ugh..." The faint moan from below kept Bucky from throwing the punch he desperately wanted to.

Kneeling back down, he could see she was struggling to open her eyes and sit up at the same time.

Her eyelashes fluttered rapidly, finally revealing forest green eyes streaked with hazel. "What..." She mumbled, her voice husky. "What happened?"

Before he could answer, she was instantly alert all of the sudden; eyes darting in every direction. "Maxie?" She called, voice now filled with panic. "Maxie!"

She scrambled to her feet, but she clearly got up too fast because her body started to sway. Quickly, Bucky caught her in his arms before she fell back to the ground. Her nails dug into the perfectly pressed thick fabric of his uniforms, keeping her from sliding against his body. Her eyes – despite their frazzled nature – were beautiful up close. Just like the shape of her lips; pert, stained that pretty raspberry color and open just enough that it looked like she was begging for a kiss.

A kiss he'd be all too happy to give.

"Whoa, there, doll-face." He chuckles low in his throat, steadying her. His fingers flex as he fights off the urge to grip the curve of her hips to pull them so they align perfectly with his own. "You wanna take a breath or somethin'."

Her head tilts to the side, eyes narrowing and she looks at him like she's trying to figure out if she knows him. It's impossible that she knows him, though, because he'd _definitely_ remember her. He'd never – despite what Steve would say if he were here – forget a dame as beautiful as this one.

And if they had crossed paths, he wouldn't have let her get away without _at least_ a kiss.

"_Doll-face?"_ She spits the familiar slang out from sour puss that looks so good on her lips.

He stumbles back when she shoves at his chest, wrenching away. Her eyebrows shaped perfectly pinch together and it's still there – that look in her eyes – like she's trying to figure out where she knows him from.

"Now, now," His voice is cajoling, lips tilted rakishly. "Let's not get physical. If an officer were to walk by, he might get the wrong idea, and a dame as pretty as you shouldn't be getting carted off in a Paddy Wagon. _Especially_," His eyes gleam with interest, his voice dropping purposefully. "When it's my last night in the city before I ship out. I'd hate being an ocean away in a few hours and know that me and you got off to such a bad start."

Lulu blinked repeatedly. She couldn't shake the feeling that she _knew_ this guy. That she'd seen him before. The interest in his eyes, the way his lips titled and the low rumbling of his voice, slightly rough with a Brooklyn accent but not a thick one like... She shook her head, not wanting to go _there_ at all when she could feel the tears welling up behind her eyes and her stomach churning.

It was too much. Still. Even after _so long_ and moving away from Port Charles to start over with Maxie. Just thinking about _him_ was still too much. Knowing that he was living their dream – _her_ dream – with someone else; it made her sick.

Bringing herself back, she couldn't stop the words from leaving her lips as she stared into this [maybe?] stranger's hunter green eyes, "I _know_ you," She murmured.

Fuzzy images came across her eyes; she and Maxie were running, _"**Seriously! I have a heart condition, you bitch! Slow the fuck down!"**_Then there was this – she couldn't even describe it, the image was too vague, too blurry – but whatever it was, it was huge and had a gun [?] pointed at them, until suddenly it was gone; a flash of red, white and blue and the rapid fire of a gun making it disappear.

Bright blue eyes, fierce and determined showed up next; a handsome face came with them caked in soot and dirt, hay colored hair sweaty and flopping in front of his forehead. He was wearing some kind of suit; decked out in tight fitting blue spandex, red gloves on his hands and matching boots on his feet.

Vaguely she could hear Maxie say something about spandex and then there they were; the eyes she was staring into right now, hunter green and gleaming with the same interest. Dark mussed hair accompanied them just like the rakish grin did and the slightly rough Brooklyn accent.

"_**Savin' pretty dames like you..."**_

His voice faded away because the next flash that stretched across her eyes, stinging like a brand and making her heart pound like a desperate caged bird inside her chest was of her and Maxie struggling against the hold of a pale black-haired man.

"Maxie," Her best friend's name came out like a whimper, fear curling quickly up her spine and sinking into her bones.

"Hey," She could barely hear the gentle tone of his voice, didn't feel the masculine edge of his broad hands reaching for her own. Her eyes were shut tight as she sank against his hard frame, face burying itself in the strong curve of his neck as her body started to shake.

"She has to be okay. She has to be okay. I c-can't," She struggled past the sobs rising in her throat that was becoming increasingly tight. "I n-need her." She confessed, blinking back the tears from her eyes.

"There's a police station just up the block. Somebody over there should be able to help you."

Lulu wanted to scoff. While her memories – if you could even call the blurry images _that_ – were strange. So strange she was sure even Lucy Coe would tell the cops to send her off to Ferncliff and she believed vampires were trying to take over Port Charles. Yeah, the cops were definitely not her best bet.

Just as she was about to tell him – whoever he was – she'd be fine on her own, a familiar high-pitched wail rang shrilly through the alley, "**1942?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S 1942?!"**

"Maxie," She gasped, breaking into a sprint, not taking the time to notice that he was hot on her heels.

"Miss..." Her shout of, "MAXIE!" drowned out the small blonde haired man's attempt to calm her down. "You're alive!" She couldn't help but throw herself at the slighter platinum haired blonde.

"Are you," Maxie was wheezing, but Lulu knew it was just her usual drama queen antics. "Ever going to _remember_ that I have a fucking heart condition, you bitch? Ugh." She hissed, pushing her away out of her tight embrace. "And seriously, do you want my BCBG to be _more_ ruined than it already is? You're covered in I don't even know what, and you smell. So don't even think about touching me until you've showered. Cause, um, gross."

"Because you can't be happy that we're both alive?" Lulu scoffed, shaking her head. "D-don't you remember how we almost..."

"Died?" Maxie finished. "Yeah, I remember. We were running like we were extras in Michael Bay's latest Transformers movie and then all of the sudden we were cornered by this..."

"Thing," Lulu supplied, unable to surpress the shiver that rushed through her body. "And then we were saved from becoming its lunch by..." Maxie gasped, standing off to the side she recognized the strappingly handsome man in the Army uniform. "You!" She pointed. "I know you! You were the other guy... Not the one who was basically sex on legs even though he was wearing spandex, but the one who had all the guns and a mechanical arm like you were the Terminator."

"What?" Both Bucky and Steve sputtered at the same time.

"Oh, great," Maxie rolled her eyes. "Now _you_ think I'm just as crazy as miniature Richie Cunningham over there. Let me guess," Her tone was dripping with sarcasm. "You found the hapless fashion victim otherwise known as my best friend lying in the alley, and then she started freaking out because she couldn't find me and you told her to call the cops. Any of this ringing any bells?"

"If I say no?" Bucky questioned, slowly arching a brow.

"Cause I'd believe you if you did. Please."

As Lulu started drifting toward Maxie, Steve did the same with Bucky. They were now standing opposite each other; four pairs of eyes searching, struggling to figure out just what was going on.

Then it was as if Lulu's brain had finally caught up, and she remembered what Maxie had shrieked that lead her to finding her. She had been screaming about how it was 1942. But _how_ was that even possible? 1942 was over seventy years ago. It was 2013.

Swallowing, all she could get out was, "1942?"

The much smaller blonde man offered her a soft smile. "That's the year ma'am. Today's date is the 15th of September."

"No, it's not." Maxie whined as she stomped her foot indignantly.

Lulu was tempted to agree with Maxie, but then she looked around them. Brooklyn was the burrough they knew best; outside of Manhattan, and _none_ of this – what she was looking at – was familiar.

There were storefronts advertising collections for scrap metal; Army posters with Uncle Sam pointing and in bold type saying "**WE WANT YOU"** were tacked to every available surface, just like ads for women to help the war effort, she recognized the famous Rosie the Riviter. Just like grocery stores were selling items for five, ten, fifteen and twenty cents. They also had posters reminding people that bananas and meat and other items were being rationed because of the war.

Men were casually dressed in perfectly pressed pleated pants, shirts were tucked in, shoes were shined and women walked the streets in dresses with capped sleeves, their hair tight in curls and red lipstick – only red lipstick – swiped across their lips. They were also wearing stockings. All of them.

"Maxie," She breathed, eyes wide as saucers. "If _this_ isn't 1942, then where the hell are we? And what the hell happened to us?"


	4. Chapter 4

**~*~chapter three~*~**

Instead of answering Lulu, Maxie just reached over and pinched her on the arm [again], making the other blonde yelp. "Damn it, Maxie." She growled, rubbing the [still] sore spot. "Stop pinching me!"

Maxie blinked her velvet lashes furtively, trying to play innocent. "I was hoping we were dreaming all this up?" She offered, a shaky smile on her lips.

Lulu rolled her eyes as she shook her head. "Obviously, we're not dreaming..." "Duh." Maxie interrupted. "Why would I dream about _you_? You're not Ryan Gosling."

"What if we re-traced our steps? Like, maybe if we go back to the last place we were..."

"We could what? Ask anyone if they've seen a creeptastic Marilyn Manson wannabe with a blue glow stick thingy just wandering around? Why don't we just go into a shoe story and ask for Dorothy's ruby slippers while we're at it?"

"At least I'm trying to figure out how to get us home! It's not like we can stay here!"

Maxie huffed; knowing Lulu was right. They had to figure out a way to get home... Back to... She shook her head; she couldn't even _think_ about how it wasn't 'home' they had to get back to, but 2013. This was crazier than when Spinelli got bonked on the head and started talking like a 1920s detective and calling her 'Sugar Pants' [ugh] and Lulu 'Moonlight [double ugh].

Sighing, she looked past Lulu's golden hair and met the baby blue eyes of the small blonde man who'd found her in the alley. "So... Um, you guys wouldn't happen to know how to... You know... Get from 1942 to 2013, would you?"

The other; the one with darker features and who was head and shoulders above the blonde, his full lips bloomed into a rakishly tilted smirk. "It just so happens," He slung his arm around the other, pulling him into his side. "That Steve and I here were on our way to the future before we met you two."

Lulu raised a skeptical brow as she crossed her arms over her chest. "You were on your way to the future?" Her voice was as dry as a desert. "Really?"

"Do I look like the type who'd try to fool a pretty gal like you?"

"Do you honestly want me to answer that? I don't even know you."

"The look in your eyes when we were in that alley said different, doll."

Lulu tried and failed to suppress the shiver that curled up her spine. Blinking herself out of the brief daze, she narrowed her eyes, and reached for Maxie's hand. "We'll find our own way home, thanks."

Instead of following, Maxie dug her heels into the ground, making it impossible for Lulu to drag her along with her. "Maxie!" The other blonde hissed, tugging at her wrist. "Slow your roll, grumpy pants!" Maxie insisted, yanking her hand away. "How _exactly_ are we finding our own way home?"

"You don't think that guy and his friend are _really_ going to the future, do you?"

"Who knows? Maybe he's like that guy who has the Tar-Bus or whatever. You know from that British show Spinelli was always trying to get me to watch?"

"Just _how hard_ did you hit your head?"

"No harder than you!"

Bucky watched the exchange between the two strange, but pretty dames with an amused glint in his hunter green eyes. Steve, however, looked like he was trying to follow a heated tennis match; his bright blue eyes, darting from the darker blonde to the lighter blonde.

Eventually, the darker blonde turned back in their direction, sour look on her pretty face; raspberry lips pursed tight. The lighter blonde had a triumphant look on her beautifully rounded features; perfect bow-shaped lips twisted into a bright grin.

Steve couldn't help himself, he had to pull out his inhaler, and breathe in the sweet relief of his medicine; her smile was too much for his frail body to take.

"Soooo..." Maxie stepped up to Bucky, hips swaying rhythmically and causing Steve to take another puff from his inhaler. "You said something about going to the future, huh?"

"Sure did." Bucky answered Maxie, but his hunter green eyes, gleaming with flirtatious intent, were focused on Lulu. "Before we go," His voice wasn't as low, raising to its normal pitch. "You gotta get yourselves some new threads. You can't be walking around dressed like that."

"I'm..." Maxie quickly clamped a hand over Lulu's mouth. "She's still loopy from, you know, traveling through time and whatever. Of course," She spat through gritted teeth, turning to her best friend. "We _have_ to change. Seriously, I _can't_ walk around covered in all this dirt and grime. It's gross. So gross. You can't tell me that you don't want to feel human again."

Lulu was tempted to bite Maxie's palm, so she'd get her hand off her mouth, but refrained [somehow]. Sighing, she pried Maxie's hand away and glanced down at herself; her sweater was sticking to her skin from sweat, there was a hole in the sleeve, her jeans were caked in dirt and so were her boots.

"Fine." She relented. "Let's go."

"God," Maxie groaned as she emerged from a dressing room wearing a maroon knee-length dress with capped sleeves. "It's like being Amish."

"It's beautiful." Steve didn't think his voice was loud enough for her to hear, but the perfectly plucked brow she raised said otherwise. "T-the color." He sputtered, cheeks flushing pink as he ducked his head.

"You can't be serious. It's," She plucked at a sleeve, little nose wrinkling in disgust. "_Maroon_. I look like I'm wearing my Grandma's – if you know, I had one – curtains. And, seriously, what's up with the colors around here? Has no one seen a rainbow? I'm drowning in a sea of boooooring," She sing-songed the word.

"Everything's being rationed due to the war, ma..." He stopped, cheeks flushing even brighter as he corrected himself, remembering her outburst from earlier. "_Miss_."

Maxie blinked; trying to think back to one of the lame history classes she had to take in high school, but came up empty. Sighing, she turned back to face the mirror once more; she was, basically, covered head to toe in maroon fabric, it was like her worst nightmare. She really missed her BCBG black and white peplum dress; how tight it fit, the short hem, its geometric pattern and the peplum at the waist.

Turning back, she felt ridiculous for asking, but she couldn't stop herself. "So it's the color that's beautiful?"

She had to hold back a laugh; if this guy blushed any more, he'd be as red as a fire truck. "Y-you're," His voice was so soft and rushed. "What makes it b-beautiful."

Her heart lurched in her chest; it was like she was back with Spinelli just after Georgie had died. This guy was all stutters and blushes, looking at her like she was too good to be true. If only he knew what she was really like. He sure as hell wouldn't be looking at her with stars in his eyes.

Still, plucking at the dress' modest neckline, she tossed over her shoulder now that she was facing the mirror again, "I never caught your name."

"S-Steve Rogers." He sputtered out.

"Maxie; Maxie Jones."

The low whistle that greeted Lulu when she slipped her foot into the sensible beige pump that matched her dress, made her roll her eyes. She wasn't surprised to see whoever he was leaning casually against the wall opposite the dressing room she just came out of.

Ignoring him on purpose, she walked right by, hoping Maxie was done so they could go home already. It didn't work because she could see him following her out of the corner of her eye. She wished it unnerved her as much as it should, but mostly it was just annoying.

She didn't want his flirty glances, his hunter green eyes gleaming with interest, that stupid smirk directed at her. She wanted dark brown hair, always sparkling hazel eyes, and a dopey smile. She swallowed thickly, her eyes starting to burn with tears that she [somehow] hadn't shed yet. She must have been wavering on her feet, overwhelmed by the pain, because the next thing she knew, she was pressed against something solid and warm.

Glancing up, she wasn't surprised – even through the glassiness of unshed tears – to see hunter green eyes staring down at her. They weren't gleaming with interest or twinkling flirtatiously, they were just searching hers; the unspoken question of whether she was okay or not.

"I'm fine." She wrenched out of his embrace, straightening immediately. She was a freaking Spencer, and Spencers didn't cry or curl into themselves and try and wish the world way... No, they... She shook her head, not wanting to go down the same road her Dad went and Lucky went. Hell, even Nikolas – who wasn't a Spencer at all – had mastered the art of self-destruction.

"Are you?" He asked, voice level but with just a hint of concern.

"Do I not look fine?" She challenged, crossing her arms.

"You look better than fine. Beige has _never_ looked so good, darlin'. That doesn't mean _you're_ fine, though." He countered, lips twitching at the corners.

Lulu's eyes narrowed; studying him, wondering just what his angle was, and if he could even get her and Maxie home at all. She doubted what 'future' he was talking about, wasn't the same one that she and Maxie needed to get back to. Still, it's not like they had anything to lose at this point.

But she was going to keep him at arm's length. Trusting people – men, in particular – if her life taught her anything was a waste.

"Pretty dame like you," She's back against the solid weight of his chest, warm breath lingering on her ear and her stomach tumbles of its own accord. "Has to have just as pretty of a name. Gonna let me in on the secret. I already told you mine, it's only fair you tell me yours."

"Lulu." She hates how her name comes out on a shaky exhale, that he has any power over her at all.

"Gorgeous." He breathes, feather light kiss lingering on the skin just below her ear.

Instantly, both Lulu and Maxie realized 'the future' Bucky had mentioned back in the alley and the future they needed to get back to _weren't_ the same. They were at the World's Fair; specifically the 'Modern Marvels' Pavilion.

Diamond eyes met hazel streaked forest green, and disappointment radiated in their depths. How were they going to get back home now?

Neither said anything, they just followed the two men as they worked their way up to the front.

Appearing on the stage, surrounded by dancing girls, and wearing a perfectly pressed suit that was black as pitch was a slim man with a tight, lean figure. His black hair was slicked back with product and his mustache neatly trimmed. He swaggered up to the microphone with confidence radiating off of him as he practically left a trail of charisma sparkling in his wake.

"Ow!" Lulu growled, reeling from the jab of Maxie's elbow into her stomach.

"Sorry." Maxie chirped not sounding the least apologetic. "Do you think that guy's like the Marilyn Manson wannabe? Like maybe his blue glow stick thingy made him send himself back in time too?"

Lulu glanced back up at the stage. There was _something_ familiar about the man. Whether it was his compact frame or facial hair. Or maybe it was the quick cadence of his voice. He was demonstrating a flying car, which made her snort. Flying cars weren't happening any time soon in 2013, like he was actually going to get his to fly in 1942; yeah right.

Forgetting about the car, she studied him further and tried to remember the face of the man – if he even was a man – who had sent her and Maxie back in time. Looking at the man on the stage, she thought she'd be cowering in fear, that she'd be shaking, panicking, adrenaline pumping through her veins, but there was nothing.

Hearing the over-the-top swoon of, "_That's Howard Stark, what a man_," from the girl next to her, she realized why. They weren't one in the same. They were two completely different people.

"Stark?" She questioned, the name sounding as familiar as the man's looks.

"You know him too?" Bucky's slightly rough Brooklyn tenor found her ears next and she frowned.

"OMG!" Maxie gasped, slapping Lulu across her arm. "Stop hitting me!" The darker blonde seethed.

"Oh, get over it." Maxie dismissed, waving her hand. "That guy... Howard Stark," She pointed at the man who was staring disappointingly at the fact that his flying car had failed. "Is related to Tony Stark? Like, he's his Grandpa or something? Because if he is," Her eyes were bright. "I think I just found our ticket home."


	5. Chapter 5

**~*~chapter four~*~**

Lulu sighed as she glanced back and forth between Maxie and Howard Stark. "You know just because that guy _might_ be related to Tony Stark doesn't mean he can get us back to," She lowered her voice, pulling Maxie closer. "2013."

"O ye of little faith." Maxie dismissed. "Besides, I don't see _you_ coming up with any ideas on how we're going to get back home. Because if you've got a _better_ one, I'm all ears."

"Since you're the brains of this operation," Lulu huffed. "What are you going to say to him? It's not like you can just waltz over there and tell him you know his future grandson, which you don't, by the way. Not to mention, he couldn't get his flying car to work. How is he supposed to get us seventy something years in the future?"

"Ugh," The smaller blonde groaned. "You're such a Debbie Downer."

"I am not! I'm being realistic."

"Realistic, huh? What exactly is _real_ about any of this? Before we wound up in 1942 we were running away from an _alien_ with a space gun that wanted to make us his breakfast. Then there was that Marilyn Manson wannabe and his blue glow stick thingy. So when does real fit in, huh?"

Lulu hated it when Maxie made sense. But she _really_ hated having to admit when Maxie made sense. She started to pull the smaller blonde in the direction of the stage, grumbling, "Let's just get this over with."

Maxie, however, dug the heels of her pumps into the gravel they were standing on, impeding Lulu's attempt to move her. "Maxie!"

"You said it yourself, I can't just waltz over there. Especially dressed like curtains that belong to the grandmother I never had. Go find me a pair of scissors."

"Scissors? Why do you need scissors?"

"To fix this monstrosity of a dress! Duh!"

"Your dress is fine," Lulu insisted through gritted teeth. "This is the 1940s," She couldn't believe she was actually saying that. "Remember?"

"Weren't, like, Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield from the 40s?" Maxie questioned, arching a perfectly plucked brow. "Because I seriously do not remember them dressing like nuns. This," She picked at the dress' modest neckline. "Is a crime against humanity; not just fashion!"

"The sooner we talk to this Howard Stark guy to see if he _can_ even get us back home, the sooner you'll be back in _your_ own clothes. Now, come on."

"What is this guy?" Maxie remarked as she and Lulu tried to push their way to the front of the gaggle of women crowding the stage area. "The 40s version of Justin Bieber?"

"It's obvious he's related to Tony Stark. The fancy suits, facial hair, women everywhere and inventions." Lulu observed as they _finally_ managed to push their way to the front. "Hopefully just because his flying car didn't work, doesn't mean he can't get us back home."

"Well," The lips of Howard Stark curled wolfishly, his deep eyes twinkling as he let them roam freely over the bodies of the two blondes. "Ain't you two just the prettiest peaches I've seen all day."

It took all of Lulu's will power not to groan. She wasn't interested in being picked up by any man. Whether it was 1942 or 2013. But at least Maxie was with her, so she wouldn't have to flirt with him.

Maxie batted her eyelashes furtively. "Soooo," She elongated the word, taking a step toward the slim, compact man. "I know your flying car didn't quite work out, but for a second when it _actually_ hovered it was, um, - you know – the bees knees..."

"Oh, God." Lulu muttered under her breath at Maxie trying to use 40s slang.

"ANYWAY," Maxie enunciated, shooting her a dark glare. "It was something, your flying car. So you must be, like, a genius or something, huh?"

"Doll," Howard drawled, closing the small gap between them. "I know how brilliant I am. No endorsements from you are necessary. There are better uses for those pretty lips you got than talkin' my ear off."

"Yeah..." Maxie's brows burrowed down, lips twisting into a frown. "I'm just going to cut right to the chase. My friend," She reached out, tugging Lulu so they were side by side. "And I aren't exactly from around here, and while the 40s seem nice and everything, we can't stay. Cause, seriously, I can't dress like this every day. I've been in this monstrosity for, like, two hours and I swear I've forgotten what my legs look like," Her brows hiked for emphasis. "I know your flying car didn't work, but do you think your, like, enough of a genius or whatever to try and help us get back to 2013?"

"_2013?"_

"I know, I know it sounds crazy, but it's true!"

"Look, Sweet Cheeks," Howard turned in Lulu's direction. "Your friend here, she may be as pretty a doll as I've seen in a long damn while, but she's obviously two sandwiches short of a picnic basket."

"That makes two of us then." Lulu murmured stiffly before turning around and pulling Maxie with her.

"Go ahead," Maxie bumped Lulu's shoulder with her own. "Say I told you so. You know you want to."

"I'm not going to say I told you so. I don't even _want_ to say I told you so. At least you tried to find a way to get us home." Lulu gave her friend a wan smile. "It's not like I've come up with any ideas."

"What if we're stuck here? Like, what if we can't get back home? Oh my God! Do you think anyone back home even knows we're missing? Are we even missing? Do you think Tony Stark and his spandex playmates got rid of Marilyn Manson and his blue glow stick thingy? What if they killed him, and that means we can't go back home? Oh my God! Oh my God!"

"Maxie! Calm down! There has to be a way for us to get back home."

"Who says? Like, what are you? An expert on time travel now? We don't even know what the fuck happened to us! Mac gave me an endless supply of pepper spray and, like, 90 rape whistles when we moved to the city; he didn't pack a manual about what to do when you see creepy guys with blue glow stick thingies and you wind up in the fucking 1940s, okay?!"

Lulu swallowed shakily; her heart was starting to pound rapidly inside her chest. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip, twisting the flesh nervously as Maxie's words set in. What if they _couldn't_ get back home? What if they _were_ stuck here?

Running her fingers through her hair, she met Maxie's frazzled diamond eyes, trying to offer her the best smile she could as she reached for her hand. Linking their fingers together, she squeezed tightly.

"We'll figure something out. Somehow we're going to get home, Maxie. We've gotten through _a lot_, remember? We both had surgery – life saving surgery – when we were little girls, there was the hostage crisis at the Metrocourt, you were held hostage by Alcazar, I was kidnapped by Helena Cassadine, and all that's just the tip of the iceberg. I'm just glad I'm not alone; that you're here too."

"Ugh," Maxie's nose wrinkled. "You're such a sap. God, we're just – you know – stuck in the 1940s, we're not, like, _dying_. Jeez. Sooo..." Maxie looked around the World's fair, every sight and sound so outdated and not at all what she was used to. "Now what?"

"I guess we make the best of things until we find some way to get home."

"So what you're saying is, I have to dress like a nun for, like, how long exactly?"

"Shut up, you're not dressed like a nun. Maybe those guys... Bucky and Steve, can help us figure out what to do. It can't hurt to have friends, since we're not _exactly_ from around here."

"You shut up."

Steve knew he shouldn't, that there was less than a one in a million chance that a beautiful dame like Maxie [even if she was something strange], would want _anything_ to do with him, but after she and her friend went off in search of Howard Stark, he couldn't stop himself from standing on his tip toes, searching for her unique style of choppy platinum hair. Even without it, he knew, she would've stood out amongst all the women that were milling about at the fair and smelling real sweet.

"You _better_ be looking for me." The quick cadence of a woman's melodic tone, nearly had him jumping out of his skin.

He could feel that persistent blush blossoming across his cheeks and spreading fast to the thin column of his neck as he turned to face who he hoped was her. He swallowed at the cheeky grin painted onto the seam of her perfectly bow-shaped lips. Her eyes were sparkling underneath her lids that were at half-mast.

"There isn't a-anyone e-else," He stumbled, cursing himself inwardly. "I'd be looking for, Miss Jones. Well, aside from Bucky of course."

"Okay, _seriously_, stop with this Miss Jones stuff. You make me sound like I'm a crazy old cat lady. It seems like I'm going to be here for a while, I guess, I don't know – science and time travel or whatever happened to me, I don't get it – I just know I'm sort of stuck for now, and other than Lulu, you're the only person I know around here, so for fuck's sake call me Maxie."

"Just," He rubbed the back of his neck, blush deepening. "Being polite, that's all."

"Yeah, well, where I'm from politeness, especially from a guy, is basically dead." She remarked dryly. "And calling me Maxie isn't going to kill you. Cause I can't call you Mr. Rogers with a straight face. So you're Steve and I'm Maxie. Got it?"

"If you insist."

"I do insist. Insisting is what I do best; just ask Lulu. Though, even with all of my insisting she still thinks all the clothes in her closet should be worn and not burned and that her hair isn't a travesty. So maybe insisting isn't exactly what I do best."

"I'm sure she appreciates your advice, even if she's not receptive to it."

"Ha!"

Even though it wasn't the bright laugh he'd heard just the one time before, the loud bark still had him reaching for his inhaler. Or maybe it was the fact that he just realized, he was eye level with her bosom do to his lack of height. Breathing in the relief of his medicine, he had to take several more long puffs when her lips bloomed into a soft smile and she turned her diamond eyes on him, saying, as slow violins played in the background, "I love this song."

Desperately he wanted to have the courage to ask her to dance, but his heart wouldn't be able to take it if she said no, like he knew she would. Dames – he knew all too well – weren't exactly keen on dancing with a fella they'd step on.

"I don't really like old movies – well, _Casablanca's_ old where I'm from," She laughed under her breath. "I guess it's new _now_, but I like it. I try to hide it, but I'm a total closet romantic."

Steve never imagined a dame like Maxie could blush. She was so forward and seemed fearless, but there she was; pink staining the high planes of her sculpted cheekbones. He had to take another puff from his inhaler.

What happened next made him think his heart had _actually_ stopped beating inside his chest.

"Dance with me."


	6. Chapter 6

**~*~chapter five~*~**

Choking on air, or _anything_ really, was something Steve – sadly – was _more_ than accustomed to doing, and those three simple words falling from Maxie's perfect bow-shaped lips, inspired yet another episode. He managed to get his coughing under control, blushing brightly as he took in a shaky inhale and looked away from her diamond gaze and out onto the floor.

Men and women were dancing slowly just like Rick and Ilsa. The women were tucked in close, the tops of their heads just underneath the chins of the men.

His heart sunk; _that_ all too familiar picture was something he'd _never_ be able to recreate with Maxie.

"I wish I could," He turned back to her, blush deepening. "But I'm afraid I can't dance."

"Sure, you can't." Maxie snarked.

"No, _really_," Steve insisted. "I can't. I've never even," His eyes were downcast. "Tried before."

"I know I'm new to the 40's and whatever, but um, proms had to start somewhere right? So how can _you_ say you've never even tried? That makes, like, no sense."

"Doesn't make it any less true. I guess asking a dame's always been too intimidating for me."

"But _I_ asked _you_." Her diamond eyes gleamed. "Cause, you know, I'm all modern and stuff and that's what girls do where I come from, ask guys to dance."

"I..." He stumbled, still hesitant, which made her roll her eyes as she reached for his hand; he expected her to drop it when their fingers brushed, his hands were always cold and clammy, but she didn't and his heart skipped a beat.

"The song's almost over," Her bow-shaped lips were down-turned into a pout, a pout he was sure had gotten her anything and everything she could ever want from anyone.

Still far from convinced that this was a good idea, Steve didn't [couldn't] protest as she lead him onto the crowded dance floor where all the couples were still gently swaying. In an instant, she put both of his hands on her hips and hers were draped around his neck, not giving him a chance to second-guess himself.

Maybe it was her scent – something heady and rich, like a warm amber – or how sparkling her eyes looked up close like this or the fact that his hands were on her hips; it was probably all of the above, but he was so distracted he stepped on her toes. Blushing all the way to the roots of his hair, he tried to scramble out of her loose hold, but she wouldn't let him.

"If you would just relax," Her tone was teasing. "You wouldn't step on my feet. You're not performing brain surgery, you're dancing. Jeez."

"I t-told y-you..."

"Seriously," She interrupted. "Breathe. Just keep your hands on my hips and sway, middle school prom style. Also," Her lips twitched. "Looking at _me_ instead of _your feet_ will help. Like, a lot."

The giggle that was hinted in her voice was beautiful, and he was flushing from more than embarrassment.

The last violin faded away and it was only a few seconds before the band started up again. Steve was sure Maxie was going to let her arms slide away from his neck, but she didn't. She kept swaying, until she realized he wasn't swaying with her and gave him a pointed look. Offering a sheepish smile, he started to move his feet.

Maxie felt a tap on her shoulder, which made her turn around. A dark-haired man dressed in the same drab green/brown combo that Bucky was wearing was staring at her, trying to look charming, she guessed if the smile on his lips was a give away.

"Yeah?" Her voice was flat.

"Your hair," He had a thick Jersey accent, making her wince. "Is some kinda strange, but lordy if you ain't somethin' to look at; specially up close like this. Whaddya say you let a solider give ya a spin on the floor, huh?"

"Um... How about no? Jersey Shore rejects aren't my thing."

He obviously didn't know what that meant, but it didn't stop him from trying to get her to dance with him. "Come on," He goaded. "You've done that palooka a favor by getting him as close to a dame who ain't as homely as the broad side of a barn, now how's about yous dance with a real man."

With a side-ways glance in his direction, Maxie scoffed. "If you're talking about yourself, your Mom _obviously_ dropped you on your head, like, a million times when you were a baby."

"Yous got a mouth on you. Your Daddy obviously never taught you about respecting men. Maybe," He took a step toward her. "I should teach ya for him."

"That's enough." Steve's voice broke through as he moved to stand in between Maxie and the advancing solider.

"Says who? You?" He laughed heartily. "And just what are you gonna do, ya dead hoofer?"

"Seriously," Maxie blinked. "Did you just call him a cow? Because that's, like, the lamest thing I ever heard. And as far as what my Dad taught me, my Dad taught me to be respectful of men," Her eyes narrowed as her lips curled into a sneer. "Not of losers who can't take no for an answer. So why don't you go get lost?"

"And if I don't?"

"I'll scream bloody murder, which will cause a gigantic scene, and you'll look like the dumbass you are."

"Listen, here, you mouthy little..."

"Hey!" Steve moved to stand in front of Maxie, shielding her from the view of the cocky solider as best he could. "If anyone here needs to learn some respect, it's you. No fella should talk to a lady the way you're talking to Miss Jones. Now I think you ought to apologize and then go climb up your thumb."

"_**Climb up my thumb?"**_ The solider spit through gritted teeth, jaw working hard. "You wanna repeat that, you little..."

Before he could finish the sentence, Steve reared back and as hard as he could, and threw a punch right at his face. It barely made him sway, but it sure as hell made him see red, because the next thing Steve knew he was lunging at him. They went at it, fists flying in every direction, the solider landing more than him, his lip already bloody, his body already woozy and his fists aching.

Then like always, Bucky was there to rescue his boney behind.

Not daring to look at Maxie, who was probably embarrassed that the man she chose to dance with couldn't defend her, he told his friend, "I had him on the ropes."

"Uh-uh." Bucky clicked his tongue knowingly, shaking his head.

"That was really stupid." Maxie's voice broke through, making Steve blush all the way to the tips of his toes.

"You shouldn't be talked to like that." He murmured sheepishly.

"I can handle myself." She huffed. "I've dealt with _worse_ than that loser. Trust me." Her voice was soft and her diamond eyes turned a dusty blue, the spark being replaced by something dull, and Steve's heart lurched. He didn't like the dullness in her eyes, he liked when they were bright and sparkling, they just didn't look right.

"Still..." He tried, but she interrupted him, quickly cutting him off with a shake of her head.

"This isn't the 1800s, okay? You don't have to go around defending my honor or whatever. I don't have much to defend, anyway, so don't waste your time. I'm going see if I can find Lulu. She got _really_ freaked out when she realized we might not be able to get home. Don't," She reached out, her fingers gingerly touching Steve's bloody lip. "Get into any more fights, okay? Or if you do, get into fights where you're defending a person who should be defended. But seriously, you really shouldn't get into any more fights. Your face," She moved her fingers upward, tracing the pronouncement of his cheekbones. "Is a pretty one and shouldn't be messed up. Your cheekbones, they're like, to die for."

Steve can only blink as he watches her walk away, slim hips swaying enticingly and the gentle linger of her fingers, burned into his skin like a brand. Where she touched his bloody lip is suddenly numb for other reasons and the planes of his cheekbones are hot from just that brief touch of her fingers.

It's a feeling he doesn't ever want to go away.

Swallowing thickly, he can't help but bring his own fingers to the spot where hers had been, and somehow the heat hasn't quite slipped away.

He wishes it would stay forever. Even though he knows it won't.

"Zat," A thick accent – **definitely German** – causes both Steve and Bucky to whip around. "Was certainly some display of courage young man."

Standing before them is an older balding man with grey hair, a beard, glasses and dressed in tweed.

"It wasn't anything..." Bucky starts, but the man cuts him off. "Not you," He dismisses with a wave of his hand, moving to stand in front of Steve. "I meant _you_."

"M-me?" Steve sputters, brows pinching together in confusion.

"Yes, yes, you. Come, come with me right now. You, _you_ are the man I've been looking for. Now we must hurry the 107th platoon is shipping out very, very soon."

"Who..."

"Abraham Erskine, I am a recruiter with the US Army. From now on I ask the questions, yah? You just answer. Now come. Quickly."


	7. Chapter 7

**~*~chapter six~*~**

Bucky eyes Erskine, jaw clenched tight and ticking. Before the older man can grab Steve's wrist and drag him away, he steps between them.

"Steve's not going _anywhere_ with you until I see some ID, pal." The word spits from the side of his mouth like a ballplayer spits out chew.

"Yah, yah," Erskine nods, fumbling through his lab coat for his billfold. "I understand..." His beady eyes blink from behind the thick frames of his glasses, reading the name on Bucky's uniform. "Sargent Barnes, you have reason to be leery of me, yah, but I have no ulterior motives."

"We'll see."

Bucky takes the proffered item, eyes scrutinizing the driver's license. "Queens?"

"My accent is still thick, but I've been living in America for almost ten years now. While my people have strayed from what is upstanding, I have not. I wish to help The Allies, not defeat them."

"What's that got to do with Steve? Just what do you want with him, Doc?"

"Zat, I cannot say. Zee Army keeps some things cloaked in secrecy. Zee choice is yours..." Erskine steps to the side, so he's right in front of Steve, his voice trailing off.

"Steve." How he speaks, the blonde doesn't know, but somehow his name leaves the vice that is now is throat. "S-Steve R-Rogers, sir."

"As I said, zee choice is yours, Mr. Rogers. But I say it again, you – _you_," He emphasizes the word. "Are zee man I've been looking for. You wish to kill Nazis, yah?"

Steve shakes his head. "N-no, sir. I don't want to kill anyone." He answers honestly, but winces, knowing _that's_ certainly not what an Army recruitment doctor would want to hear. "I just don't like bullies."

Erskine's lips twist into the ghost of a smile. "Yes, _yes_, you will do just fine, young man. Now will you come? I can promise that if you come with me, you won't be sending your friend Sargent Barnes to the front lines alone."

Steve looks at Bucky, then back at Erskine and he attempts to take a fortifying breath, but the rasp there is pathetic. He doesn't understand how this fella – _this Dr. Erskine _– is going to get him into the Army, but he can't let Bucky ship out alone. He can't stand the thought of strangers watching his best pal's back, of sitting at home twiddling his thumbs and doing nothing.

And just as a shiver of hesitation passes through him, glittering diamond eyes flash in his mind's eye; pink cupid's bow lips come next, jagged edges of choppy, short hair follow and the contrast of drab maroon against smooth milky skin and her hands, slender and lovely, on his shoulders... _Maxie_.

She might be one strange duck; bold and brash, speaking an almost foreign language [even though it's English], but she gave him his first dance and smelled real sweet.

His cheeks burn with heat all the way up to his ears, remembering her slight frame pressed up against his, the closest he'd ever gotten with a dame, and it's too much.

He knows she wouldn't want him like he is now; sickly, thin, _weak_...But maybe...

"Steve," Bucky clamps his hand down on his shoulder, but Steve pushes him away. "I gotta do this, Buck. I can't just sit at home while you're overseas taking all that stupid with you," His lips twist wryly. "You punk."

"Jerk." Bucky returns easily, but his signature grin disappears quickly. "Be careful. This isn't a back alley. This is war."

And with his stomach twisting, Bucky watches until Steve and Erskine disappear into the crowd.

"Stuffing your face," Maxie remarks, sauntering up to Lulu who's leaning against the wooden booth of the spun sugar stand. "Because day drinking hasn't been invented yet?"

"Shut up." Lulu glowers, plucking off another sizable chunk of the pink fluff.

"You're such a drama queen." The slighter blonde rolled her eyes, snatching the stick of towering sugar from the other amongst the protest of, "Hey!," but she's unapologetic, peeling off pieces and popping them in her mouth.

"Seriously, though," Maxie says through a mouth of quick dissolving sugar. "You act like," She swallows before going back for more. "We're in prison wearing those god-awful orange jumpsuits. Or worse! Wearing clothes from the Kardashian Kollection." She shudders for effect, but Lulu doesn't laugh.

"Jeez," She elbows the darker blonde. "Lighten up, would ya? Just because Tony Stark's great-great grandpa or whoever that Howard guy was couldn't get us home, doesn't mean we're stuck."

"Why?" Lulu arches a suspicious brow. "Have you found us a way home?"

"Nooooo..." "Maxie!"

"What?" Diamond eyes blink innocently. "I never said I found us a way home, I said just because that guy _couldn't_ get us home, doesn't mean we're stuck. I mean, c'mon, how hard can going home _be_, anyway?"

"You're hopeless. You're absolutely hopeless. So in the mean time – until, you know, we just happen to bump into that guy with the blue glow stick or pigs fly – what the hell are we going to do?"

"Stuff..."

"Again, you're hopeless. You're absolutely hopeless."

"Hey! I'm trying to make the best of a bad situation here, Bitchy McBitch. What are you doing? Besides moping around with a frown that's going to give you early onset frown lines and crows feet?"

"What would you like me to do, Maxie? Act like something seriously wrong _isn't_ happening?" She grabbed for the other blonde, pulling her close and whispering harshly, "_We're stuck in the 1940s with __**no **__way home!"_

"Then we might as well make the best of it, right?"

"And just how are we going to do that?"

"**ALL THE LADIES LOOKING TO HELP OUR BOYS OVERSEAS, STEP RIGHT UP! WE'RE SIGNING UP ALL THE PRETTY LADIES TO GET THOSE PATRIOTIC FEELINGS BURNIN'! PUT THOSE PRETTY LIPS TO GOOD USE BY SMILING REAL BRIGHT AND SELLIN' BONDS! BONDS THAT WILL HELP OUR BOYS GET MORE AMMO, MORE FIREARMS, MORE TANKS, PLANES, FEUL, UNIFORMS, EVERYTHING GOOD SOLIDERS NEED TO FIGHT THOSE NAZI BASTARDS! STEP RIGHT UP!"**

"By selling war bonds!" Maxie's eyes were the size of dinner plates as she gripped Lulu's hand tight and dragged her toward the stand.

"What?" Lulu squawked. "War Bonds." Maxie's tone was flat, like she was describing the weather. "AKA a free trip to Europe! Cause, um, seriously if we're going to be stuck in the 40s, we might as well be stuck in the 40s _in_ Europe!"

"You've got to be kidding me. Europe? Selling war bonds? This is crazy even for you."

"Then you can stay here, and I'll go."

"Yeah, I don't think so. We're sticking together. We already – somehow – got stuck in the 40s, I'm not risking getting separated from you."

"Then quit being a Debbie Downer and put on your best sexy face. We've got bonds to sell and um, hellooooo, a trip to Europe. Paris," Maxie's voice took on a wistful edge as they approached the stand. "Milan, Vienna, Austria... Eeeks!" She squealed, hopping up and down. "It's going to be amazing! Like, we could totally run into Coco Chanel!"

Lulu couldn't believe she had actually agreed to Maxie's harebrained idea of signing up to sell war bonds. Sighing, she pushed her fingers through her hair, biting down on her lip and twisting the flesh between her teeth. She'd never admit it out loud, she was a Spencer after all, but in the pit of her stomach she had this feeling, this nagging twist that they might not _ever_ go home.

And while New York wasn't _exactly_ home, she was slowly but surely re-building her life. She had finally stopped crying herself to sleep. She was wearing makeup again. She was looking forward to going to work every day, as a waitress at this small coffee shop in the view of the gigantically gleaming Stark Tower.

Sometimes she'd even smile when Iron Man would fly by, doing acrobatic twist and turns, red and gold metallic of his suit shining bright in the glare of the glowing sun.

And now... Now here she was _stuck_, and most likely with no hope of ever getting back.

It made her heart sink.

"Man," A sigh caused her head to jerk to her right. "I bet you'd really be somethin' swell if you smiled. Like, a real sight for sore eyes. Somethin' pretty that a solider would want to come home to, an incentive to come home in one piece and all that jazz."

At the sight of the – she couldn't [wouldn't] call them familiar – hunter green eyes, she shook her head and while she sounded exasperated her lips were fighting the urge to smile, "You don't know when to quit do you?"

Blinding white teeth appeared through rakishly tinted lips, and _no_ the sinking feeling wasn't fading to the back of her mind. "If I knew when to quit, I'd make a sorry ass solider, doll-face."

"Uh-uh." She clicked her tongue, eyes flickering away because there was no reason for her to keep looking at him, it would only encourage him if she did.

But in the back of her mind, the jaunty angle of his service hat lingered. Just like the breadth of his shoulders – strong and wide – was there and the trim slant of his waist, emphasized by the fitting of his uniform, like a glove.

Heat crept up her neck, but she willed it away; taking reprieve in the cool.

"At least let me twirl you around the dance floor once. The memory will be enough to keep me fighting;" He leaned in close, the spicy hint of his aftershave filling her nose. "Knowing you're back here, somethin' real pretty, waiting for just another twirl with me."

"If I let you dance with me, will you stop wasting your last night here on a girl who's not interested?"

"If you weren't interested, you wouldn't agree to the dance in the first place, peach."

"Are we going to dance or not?"

"I thought you'd never ask, darlin'."

Even if her hair weren't the strange jagged and choppy short style it was – despite knowing her for only _hours_ as well – Steve believes he'd be able to spot Maxie a mile away. Teetering on his tip toes, he finds her, by the modern marvels pavilion, and he swallows thickly.

Approaching her, he can see the sparkle of her diamond eyes reflected in the gleaming metal of the futuristic machines. She snorts under her breath and shakes her head muttering, "Bitch, please. Flying cars? Robot butlers? Ha! 2013 is sooooo not the Jetsons."

He doesn't know what any of that means, but her voice makes his brain foggy; it's sharp, but at the same time melodic, and... Well, the shapes her lips make from forming the words... That sure is something, pursed, slanted, tilted and looking – he swallows once more, nearly reaching for his inhaler – good enough to kiss.

"Maxie," Her name passes his lips, sounding too good to be true and her head whips, jagged bangs falling into her diamond eyes, which she brushes away. His heart jerks in his chest; the seam of her perfect cupid's bow lips twists into a smile. He's never had a dame smile at him before; it's exhilarating.

"Hey." She greets and he doesn't know _how_, but it's like she's gotten more beautiful since he last saw her, even though that was only hours ago.

"I probably should tell Bucky first, he's my best pal and all, but... I just... If I was going to... I thought..." He rubs the back of his neck nervously, hands colder and clammier than usual, and he _has_ to reach for his inhaler, he can't go without any longer or his lungs might burst.

Taking in the sweet relief of his medicine, he says, voice tinged with awe and wonder, "I joined up. I'm in the Army now, and shipping out with Bucky tonight. Y-you're looking at the newest member of the 107th squadron out of Brooklyn, New York."

Maxie doesn't know what to say. She's never known anyone who was _active_ in the military before. Sure, there was Coop... She feels a coldness go straight to her bones at the thought of him, and quickly shoves it down, focusing on Steve.

His face is so bright and earnest, like a kid on Christmas. And for the first time she realizes [notices] just how blue his eyes are; it's like they're endless and the perfect shade that highlight the hay color of his neatly parted hair, which despite being thin still has her fingers twitching at her sides with the want to sink them into the strands... and _whoa_... _what_?

She blinks; eyes sliding down his frame, impossibly skinny to the point that his clothes seem like they're swallowing him whole, not _exactly_ GQ or Esquire material.

And _God_ is she shallow. But... Her eyes drift back to his, which are that perfect shade of blue and then there's the pronouncement of his cheekbones, almost like they were chiseled from marble despite being kind of sunken in, and yeah... He's _cute_.

Not her type, but _cute_.

"Congratulations." Leaves her lips softly, genuine smile curling at the seam of her cupid's bow lips.

"I just... Hope," His eyes look down at his feet. "That I do this right, that I don't let Bucky or the other soldiers or the country down. This is all I've wanted; to make a difference, to do _something_ and this is my chance."

"You'll be great." There's a lump in her throat that she doesn't understand. "You defended me against that Jersey Shore slimeball, remember? And I don't care what you're buddy Pucky says, you would've kicked that lame-o's ass. I know it."

"I don't know about that," He blushes all the way to the roots of his hair, eyes downcast once again.

"I know." She says, pushing his chin up. "And being stuck in the 40s doesn't stop me from being right about everything." The wink she gives him makes his heart thud in his chest.

Then her lips are pressed to his cheek; warm and soft, and there's her smell – real sweet with a touch of headiness, he didn't know was there before – and his whole body feels like it's trembling, not just his cold, clammy hands.

She pulls back, the slow pop reverberating in his ears, and _oh_... The way her eyes look right now, half-lidded and the diamond shade barely peeking through velvet lashes, those are the bedroom eyes he's heard Bucky crow about, and they're _better_ than he could've ever imagined.

"Knock 'em dead." She gives a sharp salute, but with the wrong hand and Steve can't bring himself to care; he's too entranced with the fact that her lips were on his cheek, that she was giving him bedroom eyes, and that her real sweet and heady smell was still lingering in the air.


	8. Chapter 8

**~*~chapter seven~*~**

Lulu sighed, her head falling against Maxie's shoulder as the bus filled with The other War bond chorus girls took them from Naples to Sicily. Behind her slowly closing eyelids, the (reluctant) dance she shared with Bucky, Revealed itself. His spicy scent wafted to her nose, like _he_ was the one she was using for a pillow and not Maxie. Her fingers flexed, of their own accord, like they were moving along the hard planes of his strong back. Her stomach swooped like she could _actually feel_ the heat of his body, even through the heavy fabric of his uniform's jacket.

"Mmmmm" She mumbled, eyelids fluttering as she _swore_ she he was right there; nuzzling his nose in the curve of his neck, husky Brooklyn tone whispering, "This is the address of the 107th; do a lonely solider a favor, and send him a letter. Maybe even be nice and throw in a picture," His lush mouth twisted roguishly, eyebrows wiggling. "To _really_ make me wanna get home quick."

"In your dreams," She mumbled out loud.

"_God_," Maxie groaned, Jabbing her in the stomach, Making her yelp. "All the hairspray fumes must be getting to you. You're talking in your sleep."

"And if the hairspray fumes _are_ getting to me?" Lulu shot back, green eyes harsh. "It's your fault."

"Um, no. You didn't _have_ to come; you could've stayed behind. Who do you think I am? _Emma?_ Bitch, please, I don't need a babysitter."

"Because playing dress up in a war torn country says you don't need a babysitter? Ha!"

"Well, I sure as hell wasn't going to work in some factory! Have you seen their outfits? Coveralls are _never_ hot; no matter what century you're in."

"Yeah," Lulu rolled her eyes, settling herself in a more comfortable position - or at least trying to. "Because it's not like we have to try and get home or anything."

"Oh, I forgot, you're spending_ all_ your time trying to figure us how to get us back. How's that working out for you, by the way?" Maxie rolled her eyes right back. "How do you even find the time? Especially when you're writing letters to your solider boy." She snarked, making exaggerating kissing noises.

"I don't have a solider boy." Lulu fought the blush creeping into her cheeks.

"Liar, liar," Maxie sing-songed. "Pants on fire. Don't act like you're not doing it, cause I know you are."

"You don't know anything."

Turning away, Lulu could feel a pleasant warmth curling in her stomach; thinking about the last letter Bucky had sent her.

**_Hey, Doll-Face_**

**_Remember when you said you wouldn't send me a damn letter? That there wasn't enough time for me to convince you with my supposed charming smile?_**

**_Well, what's this? The fifth letter I'll be sending back to you? Guess you think I'm pretty charming, huh? I knew you wouldn't be able to resist me, no matter what big talk left your pretty little mouth._**

**_I wish I could see your face when you get my letters bet it lights up somethin' else, like The Great White Way at night. God knows that smile of yours, Is a sight for sore eyes. Wherever the bond tour's takin' you, you better not be flashing that smile at somebody else._**

**_That smile's all mine, Peach._**

**_Bet you're missin' me somethin' fierce. It's okay to admit it. It'll be our little secret._**

**_Now how's about you get to sending a picture with your next letter? Pretty please?_**

**_PS, How about you lemme know just what you're wearing while you write me? I bet it's somethin' tiny and lacy._**

**_PPS I know you won't ask, but I'll tell you what I'm wearing; nothin' but my skivvies and my dog tags._**

**_- Sargent James Buchanan, but you, gorgeous, can call me Bucky - Barnes_**

She didn't _want_ to, but as her eyes fluttered closed, her body slipping into sleep; his twinkling hunter green eyes and roguish lush mouth is what she saw.

Just like she saw him; hunched over, scribbling furiously, dog tags swinging back and forth, the faint light highlighting the strong muscles in his arms and chest.

Heat bloomed in her stomach, and her thighs clenched, which made her shudder; how had he gotten under her skin, so fast?

* * *

Steve hung his head in shame; bright flush coloring his pale cheeks as he caught the look of pity on Agent Carter's beautifully sophisticated face as he recounted all of the beatings he'd taken while they drove through the familiar Brooklyn neighborhood.

"So.." He was desperate to change the subject, swallowing down the lump in his throat. "I just, um, don't understand why a beautiful da- I mean _woman_, want to join the Army?"

"You have no idea how to talk to women do you?" Her clipped tone was sympathetic, but her smile wry.

Steve couldn't help but think of _Maxie_ in that instant. Her sparkling diamond eyes appeared, then it was her pink cupid's bow lips, the slim slant of her hips, the length of her legs, and how she smiled at him; so blinding he needed his inhaler.

He felt his stomach flip; his mind rushing with thoughts of where she could be and what she was doing.

As the car jerked to a stop, hitting a pot hole, he steeled his nerves - as best he could - looking up at the imposing building that would change his life, and knowing he was here because of the most beautiful dame he'd ever seen.

The only one who'd ever given him the time of day.

Now just maybe he'd really be worthy of her.

* * *

"Jesus," Howard muttered with Erskine's help he pulled Steve from the chamber. "Look at what we did to him."

"Mr. Rogers," Somehow through the thick haze clouding his head Steve heard Erskine's voice. "How do you feel?"

Only one word came to mind as Steve breathed deeply, the feeling of his lungs filling up and not squeezing tight, foreign and dizzying.

"Taller." He answered.

And even though Peggy's dark eyes were staring back at him, svelte hand reaching out to touch him, he could only see _Maxie._

Her sparkling diamond eyes, hidden by the length of her thick lashes, teeth sinking into her bottom lip, desire evident on her beautiful face.

He swallowed thickly; wishing desperately his fevered dream was real, that the petite platinum blonde was there, her scent, a mixture of heady and sweet filling his nose.

* * *

Steve sighed heavily as he pulled the itchy wool helmet over his face. From the holes of the mask, only his eyes were visible, but underneath the tight fitting spandex the impressive curves of his (new) rippling muscles were evident.

This - going around selling bonds, being _'The Star Spangled Man With The Plan'_, wearing tights, singing and dancing wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to fight, to help with the war effort, to be right there with the other boys on the front lines.

Wasn't **that** the point of 'Project Rebirth,' anyway?

Looking away from the mirror, he was about to reach for his prop shield, mumbling the lines of the show under his breath, when the sound of his dressing room door opening made him jump.

He turned, bracing himself for one of the chorus girls standing there, batting her false lashes and painted lips blooming into a predatory grin, but instead diamond eyes that haunted his dreams stared back at him.

_"Maxie,"_ Her name left his lips on a shaky exhale, eyes going wide.

**_"I knew it."_** She breathed, stepping closer. "Your eyes," She shook her head, high plane cheeks flushing a pretty pink. "God, I sound like such a stalker. Gross." Her little nose scrunched. "No one," Her voice was soft, almost reverent, little sparks of pleasure shooting through him. "Has eyes like you; so blue it's criminal."

"H-How..." He sputtered, blinking and trying to take her in all at once, desperately hoping she wasn't a dream, that she was _really_ standing in front of him.

"Flashing a little leg," She remarked, making him turn red as she hiked up the skirt of her dress to demonstrate. "Will get you anywhere, no matter what the decade."

"Oh."

"Sooooooo, you joined the Army, huh?"


	9. Chapter 9

**~*~chapter eight~*~**

"_Soooo you joined the Army, huh?"_

Steve knew she'd asked him a question, he had followed the movements of her lips carefully, and his face heated from the internal admission. How they pursed together, the swipe of red lipstick across their surface, how it stood out – a stark contrast to her perfectly pale skin.

Part of him thought _this_ – her being here, just a mere feet away from him – was a fevered dream, that he would wake up any moment and she would disappear, leaving only her sweet and spicy scent lingering like always. He desperately wanted to reach out and touch the skin of her wrist, just press his fingers there and feel her pulse, proving to himself – once and for all – that she was _real_.

Instead her name fumbled from his lips, "M-m-maxie?"

"No," She deadpanned with a flippant roll of her eyes. "It's the Queen of England."

He ducked his head, newly thick and richer hair falling in front of his eyes. He swallowed thickly, nervously meeting her eyes again, which were narrowed as she scrutinized him. He was all too familiar with eyes – female eyes, specifically – taking in his every inch since he stepped out of the chamber on the day of his transformation, but none of those eyes – not even Peggy's – were _Maxie's_.

His stomach unfurled from its usual tight coil, heat flooding through his veins, which made them buzz.

"Wha..." She breathed, shaking her head; perfect curls bouncing. "What the fuck _happened_ to you?!"

He was sure his cheeks were bright red; no dame he'd ever encountered swore as freely as she did, and he couldn't feel a little ashamed for liking it, for feeling his stomach flip from the swear.

"I joined the Army."

"Okay, so after apparently," She made quotation marks with her fingers. "Traveling through time and surviving an alien invasion, nothing should really surprise me at this point, but you've got to be fucking kidding me. Like, have you looked in the mirror lately? _That_," She grabbed his arm, fingers curling around his recently acquired muscle and squeezing. "Does not happen from joining the Army."

Steve swallowed shakily, wanting to tell her the truth, every last bit of it; about Dr. Erskine and his formula, how _she_ was the inspiration for him stepping into that chamber and enduring all that pain just as much as fighting for his country had been, but he knew he couldn't. Hell, Bucky didn't even know what happened to him, and he was his best friend, the only person other than his mother and now the Doc that had _ever_ believed in him; even when he was a sickly, scrawny thing that he constantly had to watch out for.

But those eyes – round and that perfect shade of diamond blue, glittering in the yellow light of the halogen bulbs in his dressing room – pouring into his, made his resolve waver.

"I..." He stumbled, sighing heavily as his shoulders slumped. "I wish I could tell you..."

"But it's a secret," It was more of a statement than a question, her beautiful features softening. "So you can't. And honestly," Her lips twisted wryly. "You shouldn't. I suck at keeping secrets. I'm the worst secret keeper, ever. Unless I'm using said secret for blackmail, then I'm kind of, sort of good at it. Otherwise, forget it."

"Blackmail?" Steve's brows furrowed together and with his head titled just so, Maxie thought he looked like a golden retriever puppy.

The hottest golden retriever puppy, ever, but still.

"If you knew me, like _really_ knew me – as, you know, more than just the crazy chick who says she's from seventy years in the future, you wouldn't like me very much." Her diamond eyes lost their sparkle, but it didn't stop the longing in his gut to draw her – high planes of her cheekbones, perfect platinum curls, dark lashes and that swipe of red lipstick across cupid's bow lips – from flaring. "I'm a horrible person. I'm selfish, I lie, cheat, steal – I'll do _anything_ to get what I want, and I don't care who I have to step on to get there. I destroy every good thing I've ever had. I'm just a fucking hot mess."

A protest is on the very tip of his tongue, but he can't get it out because her voice – softer than he's ever heard – comes through first. "My sister," There's a sadness where the familiar quick as a whip cadence should be. "Though, you would've _loved_ her. She was good and kind and smart, everything a Mom would want a nice boy like you to bring home. God knows, yours would've run screaming for the hills if I strolled in."

Steve's stomach churns as his throat tightens; mentions of his mother always hit him hard and deep. He _swears_ some nights he can still feel the coldness of her hand, wrapped tight around his and then the grip loosening, until it falls away and she's taken her last ragged breath. He doesn't know why – he never did bring a girl home – but he has this feeling, in the back of his mind, that his Mom would've liked Maxie.

He can almost see her smile and the same blue eyes that stare back at him every day, crinkling at the edges and her soft voice murmuring, laughter hinted underneath, "I like that girl, Stevie. She's got moxie. You need someone with moxie."

"I don't think so." Leaves his lips before he can stop it, and he's redder than ever.

"Yeah, well, I _know_ so. I'm not meant for the good guys; they always end up crushed or crawling into a bottle of pills and wrecking their fairytale love stories because of me. ANYWAY..." She claps her hands together, forced smile painted on her lips, and Steve doesn't like it. He likes her _real_ smile; so bright it's blinding, like staring directly at the glittering lights of the 'Great White Way' at night. "This got, like, real depressing. Sooooo.." Her eyes roam over his every inch once more. "Um, you joined the Army; just like you told me you were going to do, so awesome. I could tell you were really into it. And obviously Lulu and I haven't found a way home yet, so we're doing the whole selling war bonds thing because, like, _hellooooooo_ free trip to Europe!"

"Your friend..." Before Steve could finish, in a flurry of perfectly coiffed dark blonde curls and red dress that matched the style of Maxie's blue, which he _just_ noticed, came Lulu.

"Maxie!" She hissed, grabbing for the smaller blonde's arm. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Some Senator's security is going all around the theatre asking everyone if they've seen you! You can't just go around flashing the guard to get backstage just because that Captain America guy has blue eyes that look like Bucky's friend Steve's."

"Ugh," Maxie jerked away, rolling her eyes. "Jeez, Debbie Downer, pull your 40's french cut panties out of your ass, why don't you? I'm not going around flashing people. What is this? _Spring Breakers_? I mean, seriously, do I look like a trashy, tramped up Vanessa Hudgens to you? And are you trying to tell me that if Captain America's eyes reminded you of your solider boy's that you wouldn't have shown a little leg to get backstage to see for yourself?"

"No, I wouldn't." Lulu replied stubbornly, making Maxie point an accusing finger at her, "Liar, liar, pants on fire! You _sooooo_ would!"

"Whatever... We're not talking about _me_, we're talking about _you_. Now, come on before you get arrested. The last thing that needs to happen is you going to jail. We still have to find a way home, remember?"

"Yeah, cause you're so worried about going home. If we ever find a way home, you won't be able to exchange letters with your solider boy, and how would you go on?"

Lulu wanted to blame the rush of blood to her cheeks from anger, but she knew it was from embarrassment. She hated how well Maxie knew her sometimes. Because the truth was, going home was slipping further and further from her mind, like a car disappearing down an abandon road, getting smaller and smaller with time.

Still, she wasn't going to admit it.

"Let's just go, okay? We have to get back on the bus, anyway." Pulling on Maxie's arm, the darker-haired blonde then turned to face the man she knew was in the room, apology poised on her lips, but all the words died in her throat.

With his thick hair falling in front of his forehead, chiseled jaw, dimpled chin and in the red, white and blue suit, Lulu felt like she was experiencing deja vu. Her eyes blinked repeatedly as she just stared, open-mouthed while her head swam, feeling heavy and hazy with memories that were like static, not coming in clear, but in bits and pieces; cutting out here and there.

But the suit... Tight fitting – a perfect shade of blue with robust red and a shining white star in the center – showing off the impressive curves of solid muscle underneath, and the red boots and gloves... It was all so _familiar_.

Then she heard it; in the back of her mind, gentle but authoritative was the tone, rich in tenor and there were the bluest eyes she'd ever seen staring back at her.

"_Ladies, are you all right?" He asked, gripping what was in fact a shield; red and white with a blue background surrounding a white star in the center. "You're not hurt, are you?"_

"**You."** She breathed, body unable to stop itself from shaking.


	10. Chapter 10

**~*~chapter nine~*~**

_"M-me?"_ Steve sputtered, blue eyes as wide as dinner plates, thoroughly confused by the utterance of Maxie's friend and how her body was shaking in his presence.

"_Y-you_ were there... Y-you and..." Lulu's head began to spin; hunter green eyes gleaming flirtatiously came to the forefront, her stomach churning as a rough voice with just the hint of Brooklyn inside filled her ears.

"_Just doin' what we're ordered to do." The one dressed like a solider said. "Though," His lips curled rakishly as he raked his fingers through his dark messy hair. "Savin' pretty dames like the two of you makes this mess easier to get through."_

_"Bucky..."_ His name left her lips on a shaky exhale, making Steve's brows furrow together. "What about Bucky?" He couldn't keep the anxious note out of his voice.

"He was there too. You both were. Except..." The flash of a solid metal hand came next, gleaming in the bright sun. "His hand..." Her eyebrows pinched together, her head still spinning as she tried to make sense of everything.

"We were where?"

"_There_." She emphasized the word. "You were the men who saved me and Maxie before this, _this_... alien thing made us his breakfast. It was advancing on us, gun-shaped weapon ready to aim and then all of the sudden, we _weren't_ dead and there you were with Bucky... Dressed like you are now, except..._ Different_. And you had a shield with you and Bucky had guns and... _**a metal hand**_. Maxie," She whirled around to face her friend. _"Don't you remember?"_

The alien thing Maxie _remembered_, she also remembered as she and Lulu clung to each other in that alley way how she had confessed about Brooklyn's plan to pass off her skank baby as Lulu's, but _this_ – what Lulu was talking about – was fuzzy, like she wasn't quite seeing the whole picture.

Looking back at Steve, she scrutinized him, eyes narrowing and taking in every inch. The thick hay colored hair spilling over his forehead, his bluer than blue eyes, that chiseled jaw, those plush pink lips... But..._ No_, she thought. Something about him now; clean and uniform without a blemish wasn't right.

Her own voice suddenly filled her head. It was teasing and flirtatious. _"And, um, just so you know __**you**__ can be as forward with __**me**__ as you want."_

She could see herself wink at the end, and then there was Steve, crystal clear in her mind's eye. His face was covered in dirt, but through the caked on grime his bright blush was still visible, making his chiseled jaw even more criminally handsome. His uniform – different than the one he was wearing now, like Lulu said – was tighter, showing off more of his impressive muscle, like he was wearing spandex and not wool or cotton, and it was torn in several places.

"Oh. My. God." She breathed, eyes going wide. "You were there! You and Lulu's solider boy! You stopped us from becoming alien food! And then that creepy Marilyn Manson wannabe showed up with his blue glow stick thingy, and that's how Lulu and I got here! He grabbed us, like, we were some sort of human shield or whatever, and yeah... I might have said some stuff that got him all mad... Well, mad-_er_ than he was already, and bam! That thingy started glowing, and poof, we're here! But how the hell are you here?"

Steve's head was swimming. Following Maxie's train of thought wasn't easy for him as is, but trying to understand how she and Lulu – who had traveled through time – were saved by him and Bucky _seventy years in the future_ was damned near impossible.

"Oh, great," Through the figurative cotton that was clouding his head, he could vaguely hear Maxie's sarcastic tone. "I totally broke him."

"N-no, n-no," He managed to blink himself out of his daze. "I'm okay... I think."

* * *

Before he could say anything else Senator Brandt, his assistant and the two familiar dark haired men of his security came barreling through the door. "That's her, sir." One of the two, in his gruff voice announced, pointing at Maxie. "She's the one who flashed the theater's security to get backstage."

Maxie turned around and rolled her eyes, her voice coming out flat and bored, "Will you seriously relax? Because I didn't _actually_ flash that security guard. I just hiked up my skirt, like, an _inch_. Jeez. And, ugh, I'm _not_ some groupie, okay? Me and," She reached out, grabbing Steve's hand to pull him close to her, which wasn't exactly easy considering he was, like, five times the size he was when she first met him. "_Steve_," She made sure to emphasize his name. "Are friends," She turned in his direction, batting her thick lashes and smiling brightly at him. "Aren't we, Steve?"

Lying was not Steve's forte, but with those diamond eyes staring at him, the way she batted her thick lashes and how bright her smile was, he would've done or said anything.

And technically he wasn't lying at all. They were friends. Though, he desperately wished they were something more.

"It's true, Senator." 'Captain America' was all over his voice. He almost sounded like he did when he would announce, _"All right, who out there wants to see me sock ol' Adolf in the jaw?"_ "Miss Jones and I are friends, and I would prefer it if your security didn't harass her or her guest. It was just a little prank gone awry. Nothing to worry about."

The Senator's beady eyes flickered between the blue of his cash cow and the diamond of the blonde beauty by his side, triumphant grin on her bright red lips. Deciding the story was satisfactory, he dismissed his security and told Maxie, "Don't go distracting my boy now, missy. He can't be focused on driving up the sale of bonds and getting another bullet in our boy's guns overseas if he's slinking around with you."

Steve knew what the older man was implying, and his jaw became set. Maxie didn't deserve to be talked to like a common hussy, and while he knew she could take care of herself, he could see her start to move toward the Senator, her eyes beginning to narrow and her lips becoming pursed, but he stepped in before she could.

"Don't talk to her like that, Sir. Miss Jones is a friend of mine and deserves your respect, not to be talked down to, like a red light district hussy. Apologize to her."

The Senator balked, but could tell just how serious Steve was, and though it was far from sincere, he apologized and then took his leave, and once again it was just Maxie, Lulu and Steve alone in the room.

"I thought I told you, you know after that gross Jersey Shore wannabe tried to interrupt our dance," Maxie glowered at Steve, crossing her arms over her chest. "That I can take care of myself? When you got all your new pumped up muscles, did they forget your brain?"

Steve flushed, but somehow he was still able to reach for her hand, amazed at how small and delicate it felt in his own, which were like paws to him. His thumb smoothed over her skin, little jolts of electricity coursing through his veins from the touch.

"The Senator wouldn't have hesitated to throw you in jail – Italian jail, no less – if you had given him the tongue lashing I could see you were about to. I couldn't let that happen."

"Tongue lashing?" The giggle that bubbled from her throat was beautiful, like champagne being popped, and his stomach swooped. "I can't believe you just said that."

* * *

Lulu watched from the side, feeling like some kind of voyeur. Like, she was intruding on a _private_ moment. Seeing Maxie peer up at Steve who towered over her, but not in a menacing way, with her lips titled in a blinding smile and his in a matching tilt while his blue eyes shimmered with awe and amazement, made her stomach flutter. It was a long time since someone – _a male someone_ – had looked at her best friend _that_ way.

And an even longer time since Maxie had looked at someone that same way. Probably since Cooper. Or maybe Jesse.

Either way it was too long.

She wanted to slip from the room, the urge to give them privacy strong, but the urge to see Bucky even stronger. She bit down on her lip, the memory surging to the forefront of her mind once more. There were his hunter green eyes gleaming flirtatiously, those lush lips curled rakishly, that perfectly messy mop of dark hair, thick and just begging to have fingers coursing through it, clinging desperately to the richness.

Heat flooded her veins, and all she could think was why did it take so damn long to invent cell phones?

If this was 2013, she could just reach into her pocket and call him, leaving Maxie and Steve alone while she teased him; whispering in a breathless tone, "_What are __**you**__ wearing, Solider?"_

Her thighs clenched underneath the skirt of her dress, knowing that he would be receptive to the game, most likely taking it further than she ever intended. A flash of metal curling around her right breast appeared, palming its weight and feeling cool but not harsh. Then the metal slid between the valley of her breasts, tracing the slants of her hips before finally disappearing in between her thighs.

_Whoa..._

Her heart was pounding rapidly and there was a pulse of need throbbing between her thighs, which felt more exciting than it should.

There was a swell of pride inside her chest and a happiness that washed over her. She was _finally_ moving on. But... It was all gone in an instant, the reality of being stuck [for the foreseeable future] in 1942 crashing down all around her. Her heart sunk and she felt tears stinging behind her eyes.

She wasn't imagining Bucky as he was _now_, but him as she remembered him when he and Steve had saved her and Maxie... Seventy years from now.

Now she _really_ wanted to leave the room, but for an entirely different reason. Her stomach churned and she had to turn away from the pair inside the room, knowing they were facing the same hard truth she had just acknowledged.


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's Note: This chapter was inspired by Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran's duet, "Everything Has Changed." I think playing the song while you read, enhances the chapter._

**~*~chapter ten~*~**

_**all i know this morning when i woke/is i know something now, know something now i didn't before**_

"_**everything has changed" - taylor swift and ed sheeran**_

Lulu swallowed thickly, her mind becoming a haze of flashes that were real and ones she desperately wished [craved] were. There were those lush lips curling rakishly, the feeling of metal, the heavy smell of burning in the distance, the warmth of sweat on skin, and her legs were growing weaker and weaker until she finally slid down the wall outside Steve's dressing room.

For the first time in, she really didn't know _how_ long, Dante and Brooklyn and the baby that never was, were the furthest things from her mind.

All that was there was Bucky.

Bucky _now_ in 1942; the strapping solider, and Bucky from _the future_ in 2013; something she couldn't quite describe with his, she swallowed, remembering the fantasy of having his metal hand touching her, gleaming silver uniform – guns strapped to his back – and hair more unruly than perfectly mussed, but still begging for her fingers to course through its thickness.

She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself and willed the tears she could feel pricking the back of her eyes not to fall. She was Lesley Lu Spencer, the daughter of fabled Luke and Laura, she didn't break down, she didn't cry, she held her head defiantly and faced down whatever obstacle was in front of her. But she couldn't deny the ache in her heart, like this hole had suddenly opened up and it was because of James "Bucky" Buchanan Barnes.

Oh, did she wish she could hear his voice; teasing lilt, that barely there hint of Brooklyn and slight roughness calling her, "doll face" or whistling low and saying something like "you look like the cat's meow." Or anything else that would make her face scrunch or roll her eyes as she shoved him.

It was all so _real_, like, she wasn't out of place in the 1940s. Like, she was meant to have met him. Like, he was that love – so grand, so all-consuming, so much of what her mother and father had – she had been searching for all her life.

As if Dillon and Logan and Johnny and even Dante were just stops along the way.

Now if only she could figure out a way to get them both back to the future. Or maybe... She bit down on her lip, twisting the flesh between her teeth, maybe they didn't have to go back to the future. If there wasn't a way for her to get back and she couldn't take him with, maybe she could just stay here.

They could keep exchanging letters; teasing each other with naughty innuendo until the war was over and then when he came back to the states, they could start a life together.

_**i just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better now/i just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better now**_

* * *

_**cause all i know is we said "hello"**_

_**and your eyes look like coming home**_

_**all i know is a simple name**_

_**everything has changed**_

Somehow, amongst all the chaos that was the large crowd that had gathered to see the great 'Captain America,' Lulu was able to track down a pen, paper and an envelope. One of the dancers, still decked out in her spangled best, smiled sympathetically as she reached into her cleavage and held out a stamp book for the dark-haired blonde.

"My Bobby," She explained, eyes going misty. "Is stationed in London. Where's your boy?"

_Your boy... Your boy... Your boy... Your boy..._

The words swirled around Lulu's brain, making her heart skip beats and her stomach tumble. The touch of cool metal along her neck hit her full force. Just like the jingle that came with beads knocking together and then the rough voice with just that right amount of Brooklyn filled her ears, "_Ain't you just the cat's meow," _There were his hands, sliding down the slope of her neck, touching the rectangular shaped silver – _dog tags_, **his dog tags** – that hung in between her breasts. "_You're gammin' now, doll face. And every lounge lizard on the corner's gonna know you're mine."_

It was so _real_ the press of his lips where her neck met her shoulder. How she didn't gasp, she didn't know.

Smiling at the brunette, she answered, "Norway."

And it felt so natural that if she were anyone else she'd be afraid at how easy it was to answer the question.

"Good luck to him. Hopefully this wretched war will get stomped out soon, so our boys can come home."

She just nodded; eagerly putting pen to paper, the clacking of the woman's heels sounding far more distant than the jingle of the beads knocking together.

_Bucky,_

_No pictures, you'll have to get by with your imagination, but since I've been selling war bonds with Maxie I know how rough it is for you soldiers, so I'll throw you a bone and tell you what I'm wearing. Hopefully you won't spontaneously combust. You can't back up all that big talk about winning the war quick to get home to me, if you do._

_Underneath my navy collared dress is a beige peignoir. It's silk with lace details._

_That's all you'll get from me, I'm sure your imagination can fill in the rest ;)_

_I know you told me you write to me in just your dog tags and skivvies, but I don't believe you. I bet you're still wearing your uniform, and if you're not **prove it**. I won't send you any pictures of me, until I get one of you._

_That's the deal; take it or leave it, solider boy._

_PS Tell me something about yourself. Something no one else knows, not even Steve. I'll tell you something about me._

_PPS Save your dog tags. When you come home, I wanna make sure every lounge lizard on the corner knows I'm yours._

Applying another coat of lipstick to her lips, Lulu added a deep red lip print before she signed her name. Her skin grew hot as she imagined the print on the tan of Bucky's skin.

_**all i know is you held the door**_

_**you'll be mine and i'll be yours**_

_**all i know since yesterday is everything has changed**_

* * *

How long Maxie and Steve stood in his dressing room just staring at each other, they didn't know.

She was the first to break their unofficial staring contest, saying – her tone nothing less than breathless - "You wanna get out of here?"

She was internally crossing her fingers. She wouldn't admit it out loud, not to anyone, but ever since the first _Captain America _poster she saw pop up, and she saw those eyes – _Steve's eyes_, a voice would whisper – she was on a mission to prove that little voice in the back of her mind right. She wanted [needed] those blue eyes from behind the blue cowl, that would stare back at her, to be his.

They couldn't have belonged to anyone else. It just wasn't possible for another to have those eyes. So blue it was criminal.

Her heart nearly burst from her chest when she proved herself right and found him in the dressing room and there were _those eyes_ staring back at her.

Steve could feel his head spinning. After his transformation, dames left and right, were asking [more like propositioning, really] him that same question. Nearly every dancer – that wasn't waiting for a solider – would strut into his dressing room and coo, "You wanna blow this pop stand, sugar daddy?"

And then he would flush bright red, duck his head, sputter and stumble and eventually stammer out that he needed to speak with Senator Brandt and turn tail and run.

But now _Maxie_ – in her red dress that accented the pale of her skin so perfectly – was asking him to leave, like she had just stepped out of his vivid dreams of her, but she was _real_, and he wasn't going to say no.

Not to her. So he didn't, he said yes and there wasn't any sputtering or stumbling. His voice was crisp and clear, and her bright, blinding smile and sparkling diamond eyes were his reward.

His heart felt like it was going to jack rabbit out of his chest at the sight. The sight he had sketched so often, pages upon pages of several books had been filled with her heart-shaped angular face.

_**and all i feel in my stomach is butterflies**_

_**the beautiful kind, making up for lost time,**_

_**taking flight, making me feel like**_

"_**everything has changed" - taylor swift and ed sheeran**_

"I promise, I won't sneak a peek," Maxie practically purred when Steve announced that he was going to change before they left. "Scout's Honor." She flashed the familiar salute, her smile no longer bright and blinding but salacious and naughty.

Steve swallowed thickly, sure that the blush he could feel radiating in his cheeks, was spreading all the way down to his toes. His fingers were shaking as he pushed them through his hair, his voice suddenly lost. The thought of stripping to nothing but his skivvies in front of a doll like Maxie had his stomach turning in circles and doing back flips.

He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, and she laughed – bright and chiming – saying, "Don't have a heart attack, Hunky," The nickname just spilled from her lips, like it was natural, like she called him that always. "I'll be a good little girl and wait outside."

Knowing Maxie was just outside the door, waiting, as he changed into his service uniform didn't calm Steve. As he fastened the buttons, flashes of delicate, tiny fingers fastening them filled his head. He could feel hot breath on his neck and hear – like she was _really_ there – as he straightened his tie, her say, "_There_," Her voice nothing more than a breathless keen.

And there she was peering up at him through velvet lashes, mouth parted just so and giving him those bedroom eyes Bucky crowed so much about, and he had to remind himself to breathe.

When Maxie saw Steve in his service uniform, she was reminded of her heart condition. Her heart was beating shallow inside her chest, and she felt dizzy. If she thought he looked totally lickable in the blue spandex, _this_ was on a whole different level. The breadth of his impossibly broad shoulders was more than visible underneath the less than attractive drab brown color of the jacket and she could see how they tapered into a taut, lean waist.

His hay colored hair was perfectly parted to the side, and oh how she wanted to sink her fingers amongst its thickness, tugging on the strands, roughing them up as they exchanged a heated kiss.

_Lips_... She let out a soft whine as her eyes drifted up, lingering on the shape of his full, pink mouth.

"If I thought you were _unreal_ in your spandex outfit from the future," She breathed. "_Damn_..."

_**i just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better now**_

_**i just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better now**_

_**i just wanna know you better, know you, know you better now**_

_**i just wanna know you, know you, know you**_

* * *

_**come back and tell me why**_

_**i'm feeling like i've missed you all this time, oh, oh, oh**_

_**and meet me there tonight**_

_**and let me know that it's not all in my mind**_

_**i just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better now**_

_**i just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better now**_

Gunpowder was strong in the air as they walked the cobblestone streets, but all Steve could smell was Maxie, that unique mix of something real sweet [vanilla, honey, he wasn't sure] and spicy and hot, like cinnamon. He flushed at the thought of asking her if it was a scent they'd managed to develop only in the future. Because he _swore_ until he met her in that alley way, he'd never smelled anything like it.

"This is the furthest I've been from home." She revealed, breaking the comfortable silence.

"Until I joined up, I never thought I'd get further than Yankees Stadium in the Bronx."

The sight of her sucking her bottom lip between her teeth and nibbling on the flesh, made his stomach twist and heat bloom underneath his skin. He chastised himself. She was more than just some pin-up to be gawked at and fantasied about.

She let out a heavy sigh, making his blue eyes meet her diamond curiously. "I don't do this, like, ever... Cause I'm as shallow as a kiddie pool, _seriously_, but... Just so you know," She was peering at him through her velvet lashes but not seductively, instead honesty was radiating from those diamond depths and his heart clenched. "I thought you were pretty great _before_."

Steve blushed deeply at Maxie's admission, his mind taking him back to a conversation he had with Agent Carter on the way to the facility that would change his life forever.

"_You have no idea how to talk to a woman do you?" Peggy questioned after he had made a social faux paux._

"_Honestly, I think this is one of the longest conversations I've ever had with one." He admitted. "Women aren't exactly lining up to dance with a guy they might step on."_

"_You must have danced."_

"_Just once," He said thinking back to the day of the world's fair and that glorious ten minute [at the most] dance he'd shared with Maxie, her body – all of its thin but still feminine curves – pressed into his, her warm breath on his neck, her hands around his neck, his on her waist. "And she had to ask me. Asking a woman to dance always seemed so terrifying. She was..." He paused, there weren't words in his vocabulary that could accurately describe Maxie Jones. "Different," He decided on, but she was much more, he knew that. "But I think she was just being nice, you know taking pity on the little runt of the litter."_

"_If she asked you to dance she must have seen something in you," Peggy replied. "Most girls don't dance on charity."_

"_She wasn't most girls, and if you knew her, you would know she was way out of my league," Seventy years out of my league, his brain supplied. He didn't mention her by name, even though he knew Agent Carter wouldn't know who she was, anyway. He kept that close to his vest, not wanting to think about how he would always be doll dizzy over the fast-talking, pretty platinum blonde with the diamond eyes who was far from home, and who he would most likely never see again._

"_Or, perhaps, she saw something in you that you can't see," Peggy suggested. "You're a good man, Steve Rogers."_

"_She said something like that." He flashed back to what she told him after he revealed that he was enlisting. Her words crystal and clear in his head, just like how beautiful she looked saying them, her diamond eyes shining bright._

"_See," She said with a fond smile. "You should give her more credit. She clearly saw what we all see in you that made you get chosen for this program."_

"_Maybe," He said, not really believing it. "But it doesn't matter, it's not like I'll ever see her again. It was worth it, though."_

"_What was?" _

"_Waiting for the right partner."_

* * *

_**all i know is we said "hello"**_

_**so dust off your highest hopes**_

_**all i know is pouring rain and everything has changed**_

_**all i know is the new found grace**_

_**all my days i know your face**_

_**all i know since yesterday is everything has changed**_

The words the _right partner_ ping-ponged through Steve's head.

Looking at Maxie... Well, looking down at Maxie [now], he couldn't stop himself from thinking of his mother. The memory of her approving of Maxie, even though it wasn't even real, hit him deep in his gut, making it clench and twist.

He swallowed and reached for her hand, blushing from the fact that he'd never held a dame's hand before. Her hand was so small in his, his broad fingers practically engulfing her entire hand and most of her wrist. Her skin was so soft, he couldn't stop his mind from wondering if every inch of her flawless pale complexion was just as soft.

Squeezing her hand and then turning her just so, she became flush against his much larger frame.

And there they were – _bedroom eyes_ – the diamond shade now a midnight color, little sparks coming through like gleaming stars in a night sky; his pulse quickened.

"Maxie," He breathed out her name, dropping her hand and reaching to cup the sculpted plane of her cheek in his large palm.

He didn't know _what_ he was doing, he just knew deep inside where it counted most that he _needed_ to feel her lips on his, that he was more desperate for that elusive feeling than anything. Air didn't compare to the need for her lips that was coursing through his veins.

He watched, like it was happening in slow motion, her rising to the tips of her toes, her pert breasts pressing into his solid chest and the delicate shape of her hands cradling his face and bringing his lips down to hers.

It was instinctual, even though he'd never kissed anyone before, the movements of his lips were instinctual. He was sure it was because of her – _Maxie Jones_ – a barely five foot whirlwind of fast-talking, seductive grins, purrs, innuendo, blinding smiles, gorgeous gams, and perfect lips.

With anyone else a kiss would have been a bad fumble that would've left him blushing and sputtering and getting out of dodge right quick. But not _her_. No, kissing her was like breathing, like something he'd been doing his whole life, and each movement of her lips and then the swipe of her tongue across his teeth and how she let out a little needy keen from the back of her throat only made him want _more_.

Soon his back was against a column, her legs were wrapped around his waist, her nails were digging into the heavy fabric of his jacket, and he was more dizzy than he had been when Bucky made him ride The Cyclone at Coney Island and he ended up throwing up.

This dizzy, though, it was pleasant. No, more than pleasant. It was indescribable. And he'd give his right arm if he could keep feeling it.

Breaking apart, dazed midnight colored eyes stared back and in a breathless murmur she said, fingers trailing down his jaw, "Just so you know, I would've kissed you like that even before. You've still got those damned blue eyes and that mouth."

"I don't know why," He blushed from her comments as he tucked wayward curls behind her ear, holding her steady against him. "But you believed in me when everything you knew about me said you shouldn't, and if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have found the strength to do what I had to do be this way. Thank you, Maxie."

"You were already this way," Her smile was softer. "Now the outside matches the inside or whatever. Besides," Her brash nature was back in a flash. "Don't you remember what I said? I told you, you were gonna be great, and you are. I told you I was always right."

"You sure did."

_**all i know is we said "hello"**_

_**and your eyes look like coming home**_

_**all i know is a simple name**_

_**everything has changed**_

_**all i know is you held the door**_

_**you'll be mine and i'll be yours**_

_**all i know since yesterday is everything has changed**_

**Note: Soundtrack for this chapter "Everything Has Changed" by Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran from her album RED**


	12. Chapter 12

**~*~chapter eleven~*~**

Steve felt dizzy as he went back to the base with Maxie. His lips still tingled from their frantic kissing, and how he was standing on his own two feet, he didn't know. Every time his broad fingers would brush along her slender, sparks would shoot up his spine and heat would flood his six foot frame, making him blush.

Her familiar giggling drew him out of his trance, and he turned to look at her, brows burrowed down in confusion. "What's so funny?"

"You're blushing," She sing-songed teasingly. "It's cuuuuute." She elongated the word, only making the blush increase.

"If you were me, you'd be blushing too. I've, um, it's..." He swallowed, flashes of being pressed up against that wall, of her soft weight molding to every hard plane of his body, her breathless murmurs as his tongue – with confidence he didn't know he had – tangled with hers, how her hands roamed everywhere... He let out a heavy breath, the remembering of moments that had just passed, only making him _more_ dizzy.

_You dog_, he could hear Bucky crow in his head. _Getting hot and heavy with a dame on the streets of Italy. Now **that's** a'more!_

"It's what?" Maxie's voice penetrated the imaginary Bucky in his head.

He blinked repeatedly, his cheeks now bright red, not from remembering their heated petting session [in public, no less!], but from embarrassment. He wouldn't ask, it was impolite and he was raised by a good woman, not wolves, but he _knew_ [deep down] that Maxie was experienced. That she wasn't a fumbling, shy virgin. The way she carried herself; so confident, so brash, and could use her [very] appealing feminine wiles for her advantage, told him so.

So did the way she kissed, with a fervor and talent, knowing _exactly_ when to let him invite his tongue into her mouth to tangle with hers, in how she gripped his hair and would tug when she wanted more, how her hips had _ground_ against his own with no shame.

_"Helloooooo,"_ She waved her hand in front of his face, sounding affronted. "What's with the space cadet routine? Like, I know that make out sesh was _hot_, I was there, remember?" Her beautiful cupid's bow lips twisted wryly. "But, come on, it wasn't _so hot_ that you have to space out on me. Like, even I can admit that. Cause _that_ was just, like, the appetizer or whatever. I can do better, like, _blow-your-mind, make-you-forget-your-own-name _better."

Steve felt like some one knocked him over the head, right down to the ringing in his ears. He swallowed thickly, images of Maxie's pale skin – shimmering underneath the light of the moon filtering past the drab green of his tent – covered in lace, a nice periwinkle blue, that brought out her diamond eyes and made him want to draw her, appeared in front of his eyes. Her collarbones stood out, slipping into the pert curves of her perky breasts, nipples a dusted pink and peaked. Her hair was wild, like his fingers had raked through its glossiness, making it stand on ends – the jagged edges, going every which way, reminding him of the first time he ever saw her.

He could see the delicate slant of her small hands, sliding down his chest, which was bare; his undershirt having been tossed somewhere. Her fingernails – painted clear – digging into the dense muscle there, exploring, touching. Then they drifted back up, her thin arms sliding around the thickness of his neck and pulling him into a heated kiss, their bodies _finally_ touching, just the thin lace of her peignoir and the thickness of his trousers between them.

"Better?" He managed, somehow, through the tightness of his throat.

_"Better."_ She affirmed, salacious grin tickling the corners of her cupid's bow lips. "Oh," She turned, now pressed against him, finger sliding along the cut of his chiseled jaw. "So much better."

"Someday soon?" The eager tone he could hear in his voice made him wince. He sounded like an excited schoolboy who had a dime in his pocket to put into a peep show machine at Coney Island.

"Just say the word and it'll be as soon as you want." She gave him a flirtatious wink and a jaunty salute, making him laugh as he reached for her hand, his broad fingers easily engulfing her entire small, delicate hand.

And that's how they walked back to the base, hand in hand.

* * *

"Colonel Phillips," Peggy Carter didn't wait to be summoned into the Colonel's quarters. With her usual steely grace, she briskly entered, and despite the heavy rain that had suddenly fallen, she looked as put together as ever. No lipstick was smeared, not a hair out of place, just limp from the moisture taking out the bounce in her usual tight curls.

"Agent Cater," The gruff military man responded. "I don't remember us having an appointment."

"That's because we don't. But that's neither here nor there. As I'm sure you've heard, Johann Schmidt, Hitler's head of weaponry sent a force to Azzano, and two hundred men – the entire 107th, actually – went up against him, and that less than fifty of them have returned."

"I'm aware."

"Aware..." Peggy repeated the word, corner of her mouth twitching as her fists clenched. "Well, that's nice to hear, Colonel, that you're _aware_ of the plight of men who could be being held by one of the SS's finest," The word was spat out, bitter lacing the British woman's normally composed tone. "Though, I shouldn't have to ask, clearly I do... What are you going to do about this?"

"About what? Those men knew what they were getting themselves into when they accepted the mission to stop Schmidt from infiltrating Azzano and setting up shop. They signed up for missions like that when they put pen to paper on their enlistment forms. Now, Agent Carter, I have a war to win and I don't have time for worthless rescue missions."

"Worthless?" She bristled before regaining her composure. "You do not have to dismiss me, Colonel. I will be taking my leave now. Thank you for your time."

* * *

Just as Peggy stormed out of Colonel Phillips' quarters, a familiar head – one that stood _shoulders above_ the other soldiers that were milling about – caught her attention. Briskly, she approached the golden-haired blonde, already preparing the speech about how it was time for him to fulfill his true potential, to be _more_ than the show poodle the Senator had turned him into.

To be what the good doctor Erskine had [ultimately] given his life for him to be.

What she didn't expect was a petite platinum haired blonde to be by his side. Even sitting down, like they were doing, on an overturned box crate, she was more than a full head shorter than the captain, barely reaching his chest. Her hair was in tight curls, reminiscent of Jean Harlow's famous coif of the same color, her dress a vibrant red that stood stark against her blemish free pale skin, her eyelashes were long and dark, offsetting the diamond blue of her doe eyes, and her lips were twisted into a positively cheeky grin as she teased him.

She touched him freely, squeezing his biceps without preamble, poking him in the chest, as he laughed and blushed, ducking his head shyly and swatting at her as he said, "Maxie, no. Stop."

Maxie? What the in devil... She couldn't even finish the thought in her head, so perplexed by the strange name and how comfortable the captain was in front of her. Wasn't it just a few short weeks ago he was fumbling all over himself, making one social faux paux after another in her presence as they drove to the facility that would change his life?

"Sorry," The feminine voice full of snark, snapped Peggy out of her haze, her circumspect chestnut eyes drawn into the petite blonde's diamond. "But Captain America?" She jerked her thumb in the opposite direction. "Went that way. Looks like you'll have to get that autograph some other time."

"I'm not an autograph seeker, and you shouldn't insult my intelligence. I am aware that Captain America is sitting right in front of me."

"Suuuuuure..." Before another snarky remark could tumble from her pink lips, Steve stepped in, brows burrowed in confusion as he greeted the familiar brunette, "Agent Cater."

"Captain, it's good to see you again, though I do wish the circumstances were better."

"And what the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?"

Peggy narrowed her eyes at Maxie. "Miss," Her voice was even, too even, Steve noticed, like she was forcing herself to be polite. "My business with Captain Rogers does not concern you. This involves military personnel only, so I suggest you take your leave."

Maxie's eyes went wide and she stood up, going toe to toe with Peggy, her eyes just as narrowed but blazing with indignation. "Yeah," She snorted. "I don't think so. I'm not going anywhere, lady. Whatever business you have with Steve, you can share it with me or you can..." She put on a fake British accent, exaggerated and haughty as she stuck her nose in the air. **_"Take your leave."_**

Steve's eyes darted between Peggy and Maxie, confused by the entire display. He'd never imagined women would be fighting over him, but he'd seen enough dames nearly come to blows over Bucky to know what it looked like.

He rose to his full height and gingerly stepped in between them. With his back to Peggy, he turned to Maxie, not believing the simmering rage he could see underneath the set of her clenched jaw and how she was shooting daggers with her eyes at the brunette behind him.

"Peggy doesn't mean any harm..." The tiny blonde cut him off, "Seriously, she doesn't get to just _dismiss_ me because I'm not part of the top secret military club that turned you into this," She motioned up and down his powerful frame with her hand. "We're..." She faltered, peering at him cautiously from behind her lashes. "Well, I don't know what the hell we are, but we're _something_ and little miss prissy Brit doesn't just get to waltz over here and act like I'm nothing. Cause that is not cool. So not cool. And you should tell her. Like, right now."

"Of course you're not nothing, Maxie. You're..." He sighed, fingers sifting through his hair. "More than something. You're something real swell and you've got me all doll dizzy," He laughed at how her brows furrowed together and her head cocked to the side in confusion as she asked, "Those are all good things, right?"

"The best things." He assured, cupping her cheek in his large palm. "You're the cat's meow, bunny. But whatever Peggy has to say, I should lend an ear to. She wouldn't be here if it wasn't important."

"Ugh, OMG," She shrieked waving her hands. "Stop it, stop it, stop it." She swatted at his chest. "Like who said you could break out the puppy dog eyes? Jeez, those things could probably end the war. Just go, okay? Before I change my mind and eavesdrop. I've gotta find Lulu anyway. I have to make sure she hasn't decided to hitch hike to Norway since she's so gaga for Bucky now."

"I'll be sure to catch the bond show tomorrow."

"Please don't. Like, seriously, you don't want to. It's awful. I'm awful. The only good thing about it, is how cute I look in the outfit. But I can model it for you, Soldier." Her voice dropped to a throaty whisper, making Steve turn bright red.

"Maxie..." Her name was uttered breathlessly as he shook his head. "You're somethin' else, you know that?"

"So I've heard."

* * *

Steve, watched, entranced by the sway of her hips as he watched her walk away to go in search of her friend. Heat simmering in his veins as the image of her in a chorus girl's outfit came to the forefront.

"Well, she's certainly _interesting_." Peggy supplied once Steve turned back to her.

"There's not a dame out there that's quite like Maxie." The swoon in his voice made him rub his cheek with his knuckles, willing the blush that was there to go away.

"Hmmmm." Peggy hummed noncommittally. "As I was saying, in official capacity, Captain, I am not here at all. But since Colonel Phillips will not mount a rescue mission, and I do not have the authority to go over his head, I had to come to you. It's time that you realize your true potential, that you acknowledge what you were truly made for and why Dr. Erskine selected you for Project Rebirth."

"I'm afraid I don't understand what you're saying, ma'am."

"What I'm saying is Johann Schmidt, Hitler's head of weaponry, lead a force into Azzano and the men of the 107th tried – _valiantly_, I might add – to stop him, but were less than successful. Less than fifty of the men returned. The others, we assume, are either captured or were killed. Captain, it is your duty, to mount the rescue mission Colonel Phillips will not. He believes the men are lost and cannot be rescued. I feel differently. I know you can bring them home. I believe in you."

After he had heard Peggy say the 107th, Steve had zoned out. Over and over he could only hear those three numbers in his head, swirling around and growing louder each time.

Finally it registered with him, and he shouted, "Bucky!"

It was in a hazy blur that Steve soon found himself loading into the back of a jeep after speaking with Colonel Phillips. He didn't remember much just that he told the Colonel he had somewhere to be, and that "somewhere" was Austria. He needed to get his best friend back. He didn't have the beginnings of a plan, all he knew was he had to save Bucky, no matter what it took.

"What exactly do you plan to do?" Peggy questioned. "Walk all the way to Austria?"

"If that's what it takes," He said dogged determination written all over his handsome face. _It's what Buck would do for me_, a voice in his head reminded. "You said it was my duty to mount the rescue mission Colonel Phillips wouldn't, didn't you? You said you believed in me. That I could bring those men home. Did you mean that?"

"Every word."

"Then you have to let me go."

"I can do one better than that."

* * *

Tied up on the cold metal slab and struggling to break free, Bucky groaned as each twitch of his body only exaggerated the bruising and the body blows he had suffered at the hands of Schmidt. When he wasn't thinking about Steve, about how his scrawny butt could never stay out of trouble and would be without back up if he didn't make it, he thought about Lulu.

Every time he closed his eyes, there she was. Hazel flecked green eyes, long dark blonde hair, that sour puss on her raspberry lips that eventually bloomed into her real smile that was so damn pretty.

He could feel the weight of his dog tags on his chest, but when he closed his eyes he could see the silver standing out against the tan of her slender neck.

He imagined, _so clearly_, he thought it was actually happening, him putting his dog tags around her neck. He could hear himself, whispering in her ear, his hands trailing along her body, "_you're gammin' now, doll face. and now every lounge lizard on the corner's gonna know your mine."_

And that's when his mind went blank.

Until, whether it was hours or days later, he didn't know he heard a familiar voice say, "It's me."


	13. Chapter 13

_Author's Note: The dialogue between Steve and Bucky in this chapter is from the film Captain America: The First Avenger, and does not belong to me, but the writers. I'm just embellishing upon the scene._

**~*~chapter twelve~*~**

"Would being stuck here be _so_ bad after all?" That wasn't _anything_ close to what Maxie thought Lulu would say when she found her in the empty theatre.

"Um... **What?**" Was all she could get out, her eyes blinking repeatedly.

"I just... There was this chorus girl from _The Captain America_ show, she gave me a stamp when she saw me writing a letter to Bucky, and she asked me where _my boy_," Lulu emphasized the two words. "Was stationed and I said Norway, like..." She sighed, biting down on her bottom lip. "Like it was normal, as if I _didn't_ somehow get transported here from 2013. And I had this... It wasn't a dream or a fantasy, it was almost like a _memory_, honestly. He was giving me his dog tags, putting them around my neck and telling me that I looked _gammin_' and that all the lounge lizards on every corner were going to know that _I was his_, and it was _so real_, Maxie. I just..."

Maxie sighed heavily, her own mind being taken over by Steve. Except she wasn't remembering their make out session. What she saw playing out hadn't even happened yet. Cause, seriously, she'd _definitely_ remember seeing him shirtless.

But in her head, that's what was happening.

She was straddling his waist, his chest bare, and more impressive than she could have ever imagined, and she was wearing a peignoir made of periwinkle colored lace. It was like she could _feel_ her fingers digging into the dense muscle of his rippling pectorals. Like she could _hear_ his heavy breathing and strangled gasp of her name, "Maxie," and _see_ the apprehension and shyness in his criminally blue eyes, silently questioning whether he was doing anything right, desperate to please her.

Her heart quickened and she could feel her stomach tighten, arousal hit the deepest part of her and her thighs clenched.

She heard her own voice assure him, in a breathless whisper, her hips grinding against his, "_Just do what feels right."_

A tamer – she wasn't sure if she could call it a memory, how could it be when it hasn't even happened yet? - vision, she guessed, played out next. She was putting the cowl over his head, standing on the tips of her toes, her head tilted back as far as possible so she could stare into his beautiful eyes. He laughed, adorably boyish smile crossing the pink of his full lips, and she swatted at his heavily muscled arm, eyes narrowing and lips frowning.

"_Shut uuuuuuup," She crowed, full-on pouting now. "It's not my fault you're a freaking giant, okay? What the fuck did the Army put in your Wheaties, anyway? Besides, taking off your spangly outfit is a lot more fun," She waggled her eyebrows. "Than putting it on."_

"_Maxie..."_ _He growled in warning_, and then whatever she was experiencing disappeared.

"I don't know." She answered honestly, her voice soft as she stared straight ahead at the empty stage.

She remembered it being all lit up, the girls in their bright outfits, Steve in his spangly outfit, how he punched out "Hitler," and at the very end when he lifted about four girls on the motorcycle high above his head. Her skin tingled with the memory, his blue eyes crystal clear in her head, the shy and nervous smile on his face, and how the play of his heavily muscled body was so obvious even underneath the wool fabric.

She felt like Gwen Stacy in _The Amazing Spiderman_. One second she was telling Peter Parker not to get her in trouble and the next _he_ was the reason she was in trouble, a different kind of trouble.

"Could we _really_ stay here?" She asked. "It's not like we _have_ to. Going back home doesn't mean we'll lose Steve and Bucky, somehow, they're in the future too. They saved us, remember?"

"I know, _I know_, but..." Lulu sucked in a heavy breath. "How are we going to find them again? If we ever get home, I mean."

"If they're here and so are we, and they're in the future too, maybe we just will. Like, it's, I don't know – fate – or something. Maybe _this_ – going back in time and whatever – was _supposed_ to happen. I'm not Olivia, okay? I don't have physic visions and what-the-fuck-ever. All I know is if going home means I'll be in a future without Steve, for whatever reason, cause like the time space continuum got all wonky cause we're here now..."

"Maxie..."

"Don't interrupt me! I never interrupt you! ANYWAY... What I was trying to say was, if going home means I'll be in a future without Steve, I'm staying. I don't know why, but I can't be without him."

"I can't be without Bucky either."

* * *

_It's me_.

That's all Bucky could hear; first sounding like the warmth of Lulu's feminine tone, then sounding like Steve. Through bleary eyes he managed to make out the face in front of him, _Steve's_. On instinct his lips curled, not quite into a full tilt of his always rakish grin, but a hazy version of a smile.

And his best friend's name left his lips, "Steve."

Steve almost can't believe that it's Bucky laying on the cold slab of metal in front of him. He's paler than he's ever seen him and weak, like, he can barely keep his eyes open. The sight makes him swallow thickly and want to reach out and smooth the thickness of his hair back, whispering that he's going to get him out of here and he'll be okay.

Before he can do that, Bucky blinks – once, twice, three times – and slowly his faculties seem to be returning. His familiar hunter green eyes roam over his every inch, widening slightly as they stop on the breadth of his shoulders, the broadness of his chest, and even laying down he can tell he's grown.

Something's on the tip of his tongue, but Steve blurts out, relief coloring his tone, "I thought you were dead."

"I thought you were smaller." Bucky volleys back, thick brow arching dubiously.

Even though he just rescued the remaining [living] men of Bucky's platoon, and told them about knocking out Adolf Hitler over 200 hundred times, Steve _still_ blushes. He's still not used to his new [enhanced] body. He still thinks of himself as that scrawny 98 pound nothing who put his faith in Dr. Erskine that he would come out better than he ever was before.

But he can't spend too much time dwelling on his transformation. He's got to get Bucky and the other men back to the base. They're not safe here, in Schmdit's lab, where he could capture and torture them all. He has to prove Erskine and Agent Carter right. That he had what it takes to carry the banner that was bestowed upon him when he entered that machine.

_He was Captain America._

Easily he lifted Bucky from the table, taking on his weight as his own, wrapping his limp arm around his shoulder and dragging him toward the door of the lab.

"What _happened_ to you?"

"I joined the Army."

Bucky managed a small burst of laughter, but his ribs were tender, so anything more would just make them hurt worse. With a smile curling his lips he couldn't help but ask, "Did it hurt?"

He knew – seeing the Steve that was in front of him now – his best pal did _more_ than just join the god-damned Army.

"A little."

Able to stand and support his own weight, Steve let Bucky go and as he broke out into a brisk pace, his pal caught up with him, asking, "Is it permanent?"

Steve took in a shallow breath. Nightmares had never plagued him before, but if he were being honest, since his transformation he had the same one over and over. That someday the serum would wear off, that it _wasn't_ permanent.

Instead of saying all that, he just said, "So far."

* * *

By the skin of their teeth, Steve and Bucky manage to escape from the HYDRA base after being confronted by Schmidt himself. Their lungs are burning and both are chilled to the bone from him revealing his 'real' face, his skin a raw, blood red and eyes charged with rage and black as pitch.

They climb into the back of the convoy, joining the rest of Bucky's platoon that survived the initial raid and subsequent assault. There's Tim 'Dum Dum' Dugan from Boston, a former circus strongman with an eccentric handlebar mustache. He tips his bowler hat nonchalantly in greeting. There's Jim Morita who's of Asian decent and hails from San Francisco. Gabe Jones is black and speaks with a slow Southern drawl and a grateful tone as he shakes Steve's hand.

James Montgomery Fallsworth's English accent is familiar. He quirks his lips knowingly as he eyes Steve and says, "Margaret pulled the wool over your commanding officer's eyes, didn't she? She always was a clever girl. Knows exactly how to get what needs to be done, done. She's like her Grandmother, God rest her soul, that way."

Steve arches a brow, lips forming a thin line. "Margaret?"

The young British man's hazel eyes spark. "She only lets me call her that, and even then I still have to sleep with one eye open."

The spark in Fallsworth's hazel eyes reminds Steve of how Bucky's own hunter green would light up at the sight of Maxie's friend Lulu. He wonders if that's the look he gets when he sees Maxie. His stomach clenches just from thinking of her, and as he listens to Jacques Dernier's thick French accent, only able to pick up a few words here and there, he wonders what Maxie is doing now.

He drifts, not paying attention to the conversing around him, barely hearing Bucky who's right next to him and what's playing in his mind he doesn't know how to quantify.

_Buildings – that are taller than he's ever seen are everywhere – they're steel and gleaming with finishes of gold and platinum, the wealth of whoever owns them clearly on display. One stands out above the others, though. It spirals skyward instead of going straight up and in bold, large letters that slant STARK is attached to the building's front._

_He's engrossed in his sketching. So much so, he doesn't notice the shadow – albeit a small one – casting itself over his drawing of a skyline that is so familiar and so not._

"_Waiting on the Big Guy?" A light voice asks._

_Glancing up he's staring into hazel-flecked green eyes. Dark blonde hair falls in silken strands, like gold being spun by Rumpelstiltskin, all the way to a set of delicate shoulders that slope into a slender but still attractive shape of a dame. She's wearing a peach colored shirt, tucked into a dark brown knee-length skirt and an apron is wrapped around her waist, pencil and notepad poised in the feminine curve of her hand._

"_The Big Guy?" He questions, brows furrowing._

"_Yeah," She laughs. "You know Iron Man?"_

"_Can't say that I am ma'am." He answers while thinking, who in the Sam heck is Iron Man?_

"_Whatever you say. Almost everyone who ever comes to this place does so they can see him fly by. It's impressive the first couple of times, I guess, and his giant ego being on full display isn't bad for business, but it gets old after awhile. Anyway," Her raspberry lips bloom into an easy smile. "The table's yours for as long as you want it. We've got free Wireless."_

"_Radio?"_

If the confrontation with Red Skull left him shaken, Steve isn't sure what he feels after the vision [?] or memory disappears. The buildings – they were so tall, taller than he ever thought possible – and they were everywhere, springing up through the concrete like trees, their glass windows, gold and platinum fixtures gleaming in the bright sun.

He didn't recognize any of them, couldn't tell where he was and then there was the waitress he imagined [?]. He knew she was Lulu, Maxie's friend. But until they met after Bucky had found her somewhere in the city, he was certain he'd never seen her before. How could he? She and Maxie were... His train of thought stopped, his gut clenching and then his mind was whirring.

Did he just dream [?] of the future?


	14. Chapter 14

**~*~chapter thirteen~*~**

Steve was stunned by the dream [?], he wasn't even sure what to call _it_, what he just saw flash before his eyes. He suddenly understood Lulu's reaction to him when she saw him in his dressing room. How she had been shaking and her eyes wider than dinner plates. How she managed to even get out the word _you_, however, he didn't know.

He swallowed, his throat tight and he didn't know why, but he closed his eyes. He didn't know what to expect when he did, but there were no visions [?] of the future. Just the inside of his eyelids.

The breath of relief he figured would come, didn't and _that_ only left him more confused.

Sighing heavily, he bit down on his lip, nibbling the flesh and wondering just what in the Sam heck was going on. How could he have envisioned [?] dreamed [?] of the future? And why would he see Lulu and not Maxie?

"What?" Bucky's teasing drew him out of his head, making him blink. "Did all that rescuing make you feel like you were back on The Cyclone?"

As if from the mention of Coney Island's famous coaster alone, Steve felt his stomach tumble instinctively. He remembered all too well how Bucky had dragged him up there and the loads of throwing up he did afterward.

"If you're going to be ungrateful," His tone was teasing as well. "Next time, I'll just leave you strapped to a metal slab to be some evil Nazi's lab rat, Punk." He elbowed his best pal for good measure.

"I'll believe it when it happens, Jerk." Bucky elbowed him right back as they shared a laugh.

Leaving the empty theatre behind, Maxie and Lulu were walking through the maze that was the makeshift base for the soldiers stationed here, when they heard The Senator's familiar voice, "**A.W.O.L. **what the hell do you mean _Captain America_ is **A. .?! **How the hell could you let this happen, Phillips?!"

"Senator Brandt," Maxie recognized the clipped British tone, her eyes narrowing and lips pursing into a frown. "This was not Colonel Phillips decision. I made the call to send _Captain Rogers_ on a rescue mission for a squadron that infiltrated a HYDRA base being run by Johann Schmidt, Hitler's head of weaponry himself. If things go well, they should be back any moment."

"If things go well?!" Maxie shouted, not even realizing that she had walked away from Lulu and was now joined in the semi-circle with the woman she knew as Agent Carter, Senator Brandt and a gruff looking older military man with plenty of decorations on his uniform.

"Maxie!" Lulu ran toward her friend, her fingers wrapping around her wrist and attempted to pull her away, but the smaller blonde wouldn't budge.

"I'm_ not_ going anywhere." She yanked her wrist from Lulu's grip, eyes squarely focused on Peggy as they blazed. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? _If_ things go well? Like, what? You just sent Steve to God knows where and he's supposed to come back in one piece because he's all super-fied and has shiny, new pumped up muscles?"

"You mind explaining yourself, young lady." The low rumble of the older man's voice, Maxie was sure, was supposed to make her cower, but she wasn't one to back down.

"Relax, Gramps." She snarked, rolling her eyes. "He didn't tell me any of your super secret secrets. I knew Steve _before_ all of his shiny, pumped up muscles, okay? So I'd have to be blind to not realize _something_ happened to him. But that's not the point. The point is _you_," She pointed an accusatory finger at Peggy. "Sent him out there all alone and for what?"

"So he could fulfill his true potential." Peggy spoke evenly. "Captain Rogers was meant for more than being the dancing monkey he's been turned into. Dr. Erskine wouldn't have selected him for Project Rebirth, otherwise. Now kindly step aside. This concerns matters that are above you, Miss Jones."

"_**Above me?"**_ Maxie scoffed. "I don't think so." She stepped closer to Peggy, staring down the slightly taller woman. "Steve," She made sure her voice didn't waver, but her heart was creeping into her throat. "Concerns me."

"This is a military operation..."

"I don't care! You listen, lady, and you listen good, if he doesn't come back in one piece, I'll ruin you. He didn't need to sign up for that doctor's Project Rebirth or whatever. He was fine the way he was. And yeah, maybe he wouldn't have made it in the Army, but he would've done something _great_! I told him so! So you better hope he comes back, because if he doesn't, if something goes wrong, you'll regret it."

"Maxie..." Lulu whispered softly, wrapping an arm around her friend's shoulder.

"He..." The smaller blonde choked. "Has to..." She sniffled. "Come back."

"Captain Rogers will come back." Peggy spoke up. "He has all the incentive in the world to assure that this mission, his first, is nothing but a roaring success. His good friend Sargent James Barnes' life depends on it."

In an instant Lulu went pale. She could _feel_ the color drain from her face, and her body start to shake as her stomach churned uncomfortably.

"Sargent James Barnes?" She croaked, eyes suddenly glazed over with tears. "_Bucky_?" She whimpered.

"I believe that is the Captain's preferred moniker for him, yes."

"Oh, God."

Hearing that Steve was trying to rescue Bucky was the last thing Lulu remembered. Her head hurt and she had to open her eyes slowly, the dim glow of the lantern seeming like it was blinding.

Her first thought – the fact that her head hurt and she was having trouble adjusting to light – was that somehow she had wound up back home. That when she fully opened her eyes she'd be staring at the white walls of a hospital room surrounded by a worried Nikolas, a concerned Laura and Luke who was going to say something like, "See? What did I tell ya? She's fine. You two were worried for nothin'."

But that's not what happened.

She – once her eyes were fully open – was staring at the drab green of an Army tent, and less than a foot away was Maxie.

"Ugh..." She groaned, slowly sitting up. "What happened?"

"You fainted." Maxie responded dryly. "After finding out your solider boy was who Steve was rescuing, you got all pale – the color of warm milk, really – not a good look for you, by the way, so avoid it in the future, and then bam!" She slapped her hands together. "You were on the ground."

"Oh."

Before they could get any further with their conversation, they could hear commotion outside of the tent, and then they heard it, a loud cheer of, **"LET'S HERE IT FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA!"**

_Steve_, Maxie's heart leapt inside of her chest and without a second glance, she raced from the tent, not caring that she had toed off her shoes and was only in her stockings. She didn't even look to see if Lulu was behind her. All she could think about was Steve.

And sure enough, there he was. A helmet was perched lopsided on his head, straps hanging around his chin, unbuttoned. He wore a _now_ torn brown leather bomber jacket, gloves were wrapped around his hands – functional ones, not the red that went with his uniform for the show – and his face was caked in dirt and grime, just like the soldiers that were surrounding him.

His smile was blinding; all 32 perfectly white teeth shining brightly, and she felt dizzy.

Not one to ever just hang back and wait her turn, Maxie pushed her way through the crowd surrounding him, smirking at the startled look on his face when he saw her.

"Maxie," Her name left his plush mouth on an exhale, and she liked it.

"Didn't I tell you, you were going to be great?" She gleamed triumphantly. "I think I deserve a reward for being right," She pressed herself against him, not caring about the dirt and the grime or who was watching. "Don't you?" She purred, standing on her tip toes.

Suddenly, she was swept up against his large frame, one of his large hands spanning her waist and holding her gently while the other touched her face, guiding her into a kiss.

Steve kissing Lulu's friend was the last thing Bucky expected to see after they had crossed the border into Italy. His heart twisted in his chest, thinking of the pretty blonde with her hazel-flecked forest green eyes, and that damned raspberry mouth that always – whether quirked into a smile or turned down in a sour puss – looked good enough to kiss.

And then he saw _her_.

He couldn't explain it, but _something_ told him to look past Steve and how he was kissing a dame and past his fellow soldiers that were surrounding them, and he did. And when he found her hazel-flecked forest green eyes, he knew why.

In an instant – or at least it seemed that way – like one beat of his heart later, and there she was, standing in front of him. She was touching him everywhere, her hands roaming free, sliding along the collar bones of his neck, the bridge of his nose, pressing heavy into his chest, thumbs lingering on his cheeks and then moving down to his stomach.

And in a breathless tone he wanted to hear over and over, she keened, "You're alive."

She reached for his hand, a frown passing over her face as she came in contact with skin, and his brows burrowed down. "What's with the face, doll?"

Lulu flushed, eyes glancing down at her feet as a huff escaped her lungs. "It's nothing." She dismissed.

_I thought that's how you got your metal arm from the future. Steve rescuing you in Austria._

"Doesn't look like nothin' to me." He challenged.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"I believed you when you said you were from the future, didn't I?"

Staring into his hunter green eyes, more serious than she'd seen them, she felt a smile coming to her lips. "You did, didn't you?"

He was touching her face, the rough callouses of his hand, making her long for the cool touch of metal. She _swore_, out of the corner of her eye, she could see silver instead of the drab, dirt caked sleeve of his once white shirt.

Her heart lurched and she sighed, not fighting when he used his other hand to bring her into his body. His fingers lingering on the back of her neck, and his whisper of, "When I was captured, I was in and out, but I saw you... We were sitting on a bed and I was giving you my dog tags," made her heart stop in her chest.

She pulled back, staring into his eyes, her voice soft and shaky, "You told me I looked gammin' and that every lounge lizard on the corner was going to know I was yours. But... Your hand..."

She trailed off, wondering if he saw his hand the way she did. Metal and not flesh.

He looked down, brows furrowing as he watched his fingers flex and then he remembered what he saw while he was captured by Schmidt and the word _metal_ slipped into his brain. Suddenly, he could see his hand holding the dog tags, her warm honey skin exposed and _metal_... Metal in the shape of fingers, _his fingers_, sliding down her back before creeping up and then fastening the tags around her neck.

"Metal..." He breathed, eyes wide.


	15. Chapter 15

**~*~chapter fourteen~*~**

Lulu could only blink as Bucky's words – well, _word_ – swam around her head.

She expected to feel relief from his admission that his hand had been made of metal. It meant they had the same dream [?], that they had seen the same future; a future where they were together, so why didn't she feel relief? Why was there only confusion?

"Metal?" His voice was louder now, more Brooklyn in his tone. _**"**__Metal?"_ He repeated, brows burrowing down and eyes still focused on his hand.

"The future," She murmured, unable to stop the words from slipping past her lips. "You saw yourself in the future. The way you were when you and Steve saved me and Maxie."

"Doll-baby..." He shook his head, mussed hair falling in front of his eyes.

Lulu couldn't resist; it was like her hand had a mind of its own, so she reached out and brushed his hair back. The sweat and grime clinging to the dark brown strands didn't bother her. Letting out a shaky breath, she offered up a weak smile before reaching for his hand – she wished, not that she'd say so out loud, that she felt metal – and saying, "We should find somewhere to talk."

His rakish grin appeared in a flash. "That don't sound too good. Should I be worried you're about to give me the ol' heave ho?"

She rolled her eyes, tugging on his hand. "I didn't say we _need_ to talk. I said we _should_ find somewhere to talk. There's a difference."

"Yeah?" He murmured huskily, mouth attaching to the slope of her neck. "And _where_ exactly is this somewhere?" His hand slid down the curve of her hip. "My tent? Or the back of the bus you and your gal pal are runnin' around Europe in?"

She slapped his hand away, shaking her head. "Nice try, solider, but we're actually going to talk."

He pouted attractively, trying to reach for her once more, but she slapped his hand again. "C'mon, doll-baby, I can't let Stevie have _all_ the fun! Besides," His lips curled slyly. "I just got rescued from a life and death situation, and I think we should take full _advantage_ of that fact."

"We're still just talking."

"We'll see about that once we're alone."

* * *

"Ahem." The soft clearing of a throat, had Steve starting to pull back from Maxie, but she only tightened her grip around his shoulders, fingers digging into the buttery leather of his jacket.

"Rogers," The gruff voice of Colonel Phillips did succeed in him pulling away, despite Maxie's moan of protest, which made his blood seethe with heat.

"Sir..." He could feel his cheeks flush as he looked into the older man's steely brown eyes.

"For that stunt you pulled, going **A.W.O.L. **and almost having to dispose an entire infantry unit to look for your sorry behind, I should send you to Alamogordo, like my instincts told me to when you claimed you wanted 'in' as I was preparing my units to go after Schmidt. You remember what I told you that day, don't you?"

If his body wasn't still warm from having Maxie pressed against him, it would be warm for an entirely different reason. Embarrassment. He remembered all too well what Phillips had said to him after he told him he wanted to help infiltrate HYDRA and find Hitler's head of weaponry.

_I asked for an army and all I got was you. You are not enough._

Maxie... If it was possible he was even more aware of her presence than he had been when they were engaged in their steamy lip-lock. It didn't help that Peggy was also standing there, looking at him with circumspection in her intelligent chestnut eyes, moments away from arching a perfect brow.

"I do remember, Sir, but..." He took in a deep gulp of air as he squared his shoulders. "I believe today – rescuing what was left of the 107th by myself – I proved to you, to anyone who has doubts that I'm only a propaganda device, that I'm much more than that. I'm enough."

"Cleaning up after a failed mission doesn't make you a solider. Super or otherwise. But," The older man sighed. "You succeeded in what you set out to do. You brought those boys back alive, and now... Well _now_ we'll see what you're really made of. Get ready to ship out for Berlin. You'll have your marching orders along with the rest of the 107th in two days. Don't make me regret this, Rogers. I got a war to win."

"I guess your only choices," Peggy's red lips twisted wryly, her chestnut eyes dancing with pride. "Were not lab rat and dancing monkey, after all, Captain Rogers. You're getting exactly what you wished for to come overseas and join the front lines, to help with the war effort as more than just a character who makes films and does shoes to boost morale."

"Wow." He breathed, heart pounding recklessly inside his chest.

Peggy was about to say more when the familiar honeyed tone of James Fallsworth entered the fray, "I see you've met my rescuer, Margaret. Thanking the good Captain for bringing me back in one piece, eh?"

The stunted laugh of eh-eh-eh left his thin lips next, making Peggy shake her head. "Please, _James_," She emphasized his full name on purpose. "You know what happens when you assume. I believe your mother has warned you about that very thing many a time."

His green eyes gleamed with interest. "My mother also told me, I should get my hands on you before some bloke who was all piss and wind did. Thinkin' about finally following her advice. Question is; are you as receptive to my mother's advice as I am?"

"We'll see. After all," She tossed a glance over her shoulder at the Captain. "I am looking for the right partner. Whether you're up to snuff, Private, remains to be seen."

"You wound me." He exaggeratedly gripped at his chest, his stunted laugh once again leaving his lips.

But it didn't stop Peggy from falling instep with the tall, dark haired man; once again, leaving Steve and Maxie alone.

"Seriously," Maxie's voice wasn't above a whisper, but Steve was close enough to hear it. "I just got you back," Her tone was louder this time. "And now you're leaving again?"

The vulnerability in her round diamond eyes shook him to his core. He remembered her looking like that when she told him how she was sure her sister would've been the gal for him, that his mother would've run screaming for the hills if she walked in. He didn't like it. He liked her eyes sparkling with teasing, innuendo, a spark of sexual interest, and bravado.

Vulnerable – though she was still beautiful [how could she not be?] - just didn't suit her.

"Maxie..." She cut him off with a shake of her head. "I get it. This," She waved her hands around, encompassing the whole of the busy base. "Is what you always wanted. Being here – overseas – as a _solider_ and not just some dancing monkey or whatever is why you volunteered for that Dr. Eskimo's or whatever his name was, his top secret project that made you all superfied and buff. It just..." She pouted, blowing out a huff of air as she crossed her arms. "_Sucks_ for me, you know? Like, what the hell am I going to do without you? Seeing Europe is great and all – well," Her nose wrinkled. "The non destroyed parts, anyway, but it wasn't until I saw your eyes in that poster that I realized how much I missed _you_. And I just... I had to see if 'Captain America' was really you... That somehow the really sweet skinny guy who found me in the alley and believed me when I told him I was from the future, got what he wanted, that he had joined the Army and I was right when I told him he was going to do something great."

Steve uncrossed her arms and gently cradled her cheek in his large palm. "I'll be coming back. I have every reason," His thumb swept across her skin. "To."

He tilted her chin just so and bent forward, sweeping her into his body as his lips descended on hers.

* * *

"Just talking, huh?" Bucky waggled his eyebrows as Lulu lead him into an empty ten, lit by only a solitary candle.

In the soft glow, not that she would say so out loud [please], he looked more handsome than usual. And she couldn't stop herself from glancing at the dog tags that dangled from the chain around his neck. She couldn't help but bring her fingers up to her neck, which was bare, and feel like _they_ – the weight of the silver, the coolness of it against her skin – was missing.

She wasn't going to tell him that, though.

So instead she cut right to the chase, "You dreamed about the future."

"Peach," He sighed, fingers threading through his hair, and no she wasn't admiring the subtle flex of his toned arm. "I don't know what the hell was going on back there. You can ask Steve, I wasn't exactly in tip top shape. I was strapped to a metal table for God only knows how long."

"I know what you saw because I saw it too. First... You had your metal arm when you and Steve rescued Maxie and I from that alien, and then later after Maxie had wormed her way into Steve's dressing room, I had... I don't know," She let out a puff of frustration, struggling to find the right word. "A dream... Vision, memory... Something, like, a flash of you and me; in the future, because you had your metal arm. I could _feel_ your fingers, the metal, against the skin of my neck and how you slid one down my spine. We were on a bed and you were telling me..."

"You looked gammin'." Bucky finished, his voice heavy.

"And that every lounge lizard on the corner was going to know I was yours."

"But how?"

"I don't know. I barely understand how Maxie and I are here right now, let alone how you and Steve are somehow in the future. But..." Lulu bit down on her lip, twisting the flesh. "Maybe..." She searched his hunter green eyes. "This... Maxie and I being here and you and Steve being there, it's fate. Like, we were meant to be."

"You believe that?" His face was barely an inch away from hers, his thumb rubbing circles on her thigh.

"Nothing else makes sense." She admitted.

"So what? This – you and your gal pal being here – is just, like, a pit stop along the way? A detour?"

"It's something more, and you know it, Barnes."

"You know what I know, Lulu?"

Her heart leapt in her chest; the roughness of his slight Brooklyn tone sending a shiver unfurling along her spine. Her name had never sounded so good.

"That I'm gonna kiss you right now, that's what I know."


	16. Chapter 16

_Author's Note: This chapter is rated 'm' for sexual situations. If that's not your thing, come back next chapter. I was inspired by Ed Sheeran's song "Kiss Me." Go ahead and listen while you read, pretty please._

**~*~chapter fifteen~*~**

_**and your heart's against my chest, your lips pressed to my neck**_

_**i'm falling for your eyes, but they don't know me yet**_

_**and with a feeling i'll forget, i'm in love now**_

"_**kiss me" - by ed sheeran**_

"_You know what I know, Lulu?"_

_Her heart leapt in her chest; the roughness of his slight Brooklyn tone sending a shiver unfurling along her spine. Her name had never sounded so good._

"_That I'm gonna kiss you right now, that's what I know."_

Everything after Bucky huskily stated his intent to kiss her, seemed to move in slow motion. She wanted to raise her chin to meet his lips, to stand on her toes, wrap her hands around the broadness of his shoulders, but moving was impossible. All she could do was stand and anticipate the feeling of his lips [finally] descending onto her own.

Instantly, her eyes fluttered, closing from the moment his lips touched hers.

She was swept up into everything he was; her slim frame aligning with his, chest to chest, hips to hips. She sighed breathlessly, opening her mouth for his tongue without resistance. Her fingers sank into the thickness of his dark hair, gripping tight as she pushed her hips against his, silently telling him what she wanted.

"Doll-Face," He gasped, breaking the kiss amongst a whine of protest. "Are you _sure_ about this?"

"Don't tell me you're all talk and no action, Solider." Lulu sassed, slipping one sleeve of her dress down her right shoulder. "Show me you're man enough to put your money where your mouth is."

After slipping the other sleeve off her left shoulder, the blue fabric slid down her body, leaving her standing in just a full slip with scalloped lace around the bust and hemline. Her lips curled upwards at the gulp of air she saw him take in.

Her thighs clenched and the heat of arousal lapped her veins, skin prickling with goosebumps from his roving eyes not sparing an inch of her body. Her brain settled underneath a fog of lust, only aware of his eyes and then his hands – their roughness, gliding reverently along the bare skin of her neck and arms – and his lips, lush and talented; knowing exactly _where_ on her neck to lick, nip and suck to make her hips buck instinctively against his.

This – having him lay her on the creaking army cot – hovering over her, lithe muscles in his arms standing out wonderfully, was so familiar. It was like they'd been here a thousand times before. The jingle of his dog tags, the cool of the metal chain sliding against the over-heated skin of her breasts, her nipples puckering from just a brush of his fingertips, the wetness gathering at the apex of her thighs... She knew she felt it all before because of him, somehow.

The definition of his chest; tracing the scar along his ribs, it was like her hands knew exactly where to roam. That – this – his body, was not unfamiliar territory to her. She had felt the hard planes of his back, sighed into the sweat-slicked skin of his collarbones, nipped at the broadness of his shoulders, whispered his name, "Bucky," against the hollow of his neck as his fingers sunk inside of her.

"Lesley-Lu," He gasped out, her walls trembling around his fingers before tightening like a vice.

If they weren't so consumed by the heat and the lust swirling around them, they would've realized he called her _Lesley-Lu_, her full name, something she never told him. He only knew her as Lulu, but here in this moment, with his fingers exploring the most sacred part of her and bringing her to the peak, he called her Lesley-Lu.

And moments later, after her shuddering subsided and she looked at him through lust-glazed eyes, she keened out, her hips rolling against his, "James."

It took all he had not to pound into her in that moment. His name – given – slipping from her raspberry mouth was too much for him to take. All the times he'd been called 'James' before disappeared from his mind. There was only the way she [Lesley-Lu] keened the five letters now.

"Lemme get a rubber, Doll-Face." His lips curled into their signature rakish grin. "These Army docs are really hammering home safety first, ya know?"

"You're so romantic." She responded dryly, rolling her eyes.

"The only thing that's missing is some Benny Goodman or some Sinatra. Look," He jerked his thumb in the direction of the lone candle in the tent. "Mood lighting and everything."

"Good thing you're handsome." She teased, eyes glittering with mirth. "Your personality needs work... James."

"I'll show you," He swept her up into his defined chest, making her shriek. "Personality, Lesley-Lu."

Bucky stared at Lulu reverently, his rough palm cupping her cheek while his other hand glided down the right side of her body; pausing to cup the pertness of her breast, fingers swept across the line of her hip and he gave the globe of her ass a squeeze.

And then, slowly, after she took the rubber from him and slid it across his rigid length, he sheathed himself inside of her.

How long they stayed like that – him inside, not moving – his hunter green eyes locked on her hazel-flecked green, they didn't know. Or care. But when he finally did move, both shuddered and closed their eyes, heads touching as they moaned in unison.

"Beautiful." He ground out, taking in the slight of her sweat-slicked skin glowing under the faint glow of the candle and how her back arched, her once tightly spiraled curls, loose and falling around her shoulders.

"Harder." She requested, urging him on with insistent rolls of her hips.

"What the lady wants..." He winked and she slapped at his chest, making him laugh before he caught her lips in a steamy kiss, his thrusts now harder, just like she wanted.

_**kiss me like you want to be loved**_

_**you wanna be loved**_

_**you wanna be loved**_

_**this feels like falling in love**_

_**falling in love**_

_**we're falling in love**_

_**settle down with me**_

_**cover me up**_

_**cuddle me in**_

"_**kiss me" - by ed sheeran**_

* * *

The kiss broke easily, leaving Steve feeling dizzy and overwhelmed like their kisses always did. The way Maxie stared at him, eyelashes seductively low and the gleaming lust in her [now] sapphire and no longer diamond gaze, wasn't helping matters.

His gut twisted, wishing he was as experienced as the men she was used to. The men from... He swallowed, the word, _future_ running through his head. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind, wanting to only be focused on her and how she was in front of him, tiny body pressed against his well-built frame. He didn't think – after leaving the fair – she'd ever be in front of him again, that he'd ever see her again.

And wasting opportunities in war times wasn't very smart.

He could think about the future later.

The present – and his present was Maxie – was far more important.

"If I promise to be good," Her purring in his ear, brought him back. "Will you show me your barracks, Captain."

He could feel the familiar heat of a blush creeping up his neck and settling into his cheeks. "Maxie," He chided, shaking his head.

"Don't be such a Boy Scout, Steve." She pouted. "I won't just be good," Her smile was salacious. "I'll be quiet too." She added a wink for good measure and all of his blood, suddenly rushed south.

A heavy breath escaped him, his fingers scrubbing through his hair, as he got hotter under the collar by the second. He rubbed the back of his neck, nervously, as he wet his lips. He took another heavy breath, wanting what he was about to say to come out just right, to not be nervous and fumbling.

"I w-want," The stuttering, apparently, couldn't be helped and he could feel the heat flooding his cheeks. "To draw you." He wrung his hands together. "Wanted to since I first saw you, really." He mumbled the last part, remembering finding her in the alley, laying there.

Nearly every inch of her legs was on display, more skin than he'd seen a dame show outside of a pin-up. Her hair was that strange choppy style. Her dress even stranger. And most certainly indecent with its barely thigh covering hem.

He thought she was something real pretty just laying there, and then her thick lashes fluttered and there were her diamond eyes staring straight at him.

Other than when Bucky forced him onto The Cyclone, he was sure his stomach had never flipped so hard without causing him to throw up.

"Like one of your French girls?" Maxie purred, jolting him back from the memory.

"Like one... _French girls_?" Steve blinked, brows burrowing down and she laughed, bouncy and bright.

"Just so you know," She linked her arm with his, not bothering to answer his question. "I have a really hard time sitting still. So..." She turned, letting her finger drag down his side, pressing into the swell of his abs underneath his combat uniform. "You might just have to _distract_ me."

"I'll," He swallowed, pushing several curls behind her ear. "See what I can do to accommodate you, Miss."

_**settle down with me**_

_**and i'll be your safety**_

_**you'll be my lady**_

In the glow of the two lanterns inside his tent, Maxie [somehow] was even more beautiful.

She went through a series of intricate poses, twisting and then re-twisting her body at odd angles, which made him flush as his imagination ran away with him, images of her in those poses underneath him coming to the forefront of his mind.

Eventually, he posed her himself. Laughing as she pouted and whined, "But I'm just laying down on my side! You can't even see down the front of my dress!"

"Should I start distracting you now?" He teased, feeling bold under the glow of the light and with her laying across his cot.

"Like, I'm going to say no." She quipped. "By all means, Steve," His name left her lips on a husky exhale, on purpose, he was sure. "Distract away."

He learned early on, not that they'd known each other long, that she was a hard dame to refuse. And seeing her like that, basically, offering herself, wasn't helping. Drawing her could wait. Right now the need to touch her was too overwhelming to ignore.

_**i was made to keep your body warm**_

_**but i'm cold as the wind blows so hold me in your arms**_

Cream fabric, almost the same color as her flawless skin, was what he encountered after she let him strip her of her bold red dress. The outline of her breasts, the slant of her hips, and the stretch of her slim thighs were all visible through the fabric.

He swallowed, wondering if he was being impolite by staring for as long as he was. He wished he knew what to do now, what move he was supposed to make, how to touch her without seeming like a fella who wanted nothing more than to get her underneath him. Because he wanted _more_ than just that.

He understood the appeal of what chasing skirts meant to Bucky, but with Maxie there in just that cream fabric and giving him bedroom eyes, he knew there was something more here than just giving into natural urges and whatnot.

Sure, he'd thought about what it would be like to be with a dame, but his fevered dreams – even if they hadn't touched yet – were _nothing_ compared to this.

"Ugh," She huffed, but her tone was more playful than annoyed. "Do I have to do everything around here?"

Without preamble, her delicately shaped fingers were unzipping the zipper of his combat jacket. The heavy fabric fell to the ground with a thud, and other than the clank of his belt after she undid his pants, her gasps and his moans were the only sounds that filled the tent.

He watched, entranced, as her small hands roamed over the expanse of his powerful chest. Her touch sent little sparks jolting through him, warming his body from the inside out. Her lips on his skin were even _better_ than her hands. Her teeth sinking into his shoulder was more pleasant than he could have ever thought, but it was her hand, boldly, wrapping around his hard length that took his breath away.

His eyes closed tight, hips bucking harshly when the skin of her fingers – so soft – touched his length. They jerked again as she swiped one finger across its leaking head, before moving lower to fondle his balls.

Then her voice was in his ear, "Trust me."

"_Trust me." Her voice was right there in his ear, her fingers rubbing gentle circles along his wrist._

"_Don't you know by now," He gave her a soft grin. "That I always do, Bunny?"_

"_Always, huh?" She arched a brow. "What about that time we were in Tony's garage in Malibu, and I wanted to..." _

"_Mommy! Pops!" Heavy breathing, interrupted her story as a boy with sandy blonde hair, falling in front of his impossibly blue eyes, appeared. "Did you see?! Did you see?!" The heavy breathing turned into wheezing, but he didn't seem to notice. "I was pretty fast, huh? Soon, I'll get to be as fast as you, right Pops?"_

_Maxie gave Steve a sharp jab in his stomach, biting the inside of her lip, because [of course] it hurt her more than it hurt him. He probably didn't even feel it, she thought, rolling her eyes. She watched, her hand drifting to her slightly swollen stomach, as Steve bent down, ruffling their son's hair and smiling bright._

"_Once Uncle Tony gets you those spinning rims he keeps crowing about, you'll be faster than me, Malcolm."_

"_Yeah, but someday I won't need my braces – whether they have spinning rims or not – Mommy said so."_

"_Well, if Mommy said so..."_

"_Uh, Mommy did say so, and Mommy is **always** right." Maxie jumped in, helping Steve put Malcolm's leg braces back on. "And your Pops should know. I told him he'd be great, and look at him! He's Captain America..."_

"_The Star Spangled Man with the Plan!" Malcolm hollered, his laughter quickly turning into coughing, which had Steve giving him his inhaler._

"_Don't even think about it, Buster." Maxie hissed. "You were like that once upon a time, and I didn't care. It took a long time for the outside to match the inside, so what? Eventually it did, and the same thing's going to happen to Malcolm. But the way he is, isn't your fault. Cause, seriously, he could have ended up with, like, five eyes! Or, like, webbed feet! Those things would've been way worse than braces on his legs, that he won't have to wear forever and a weak heart, that he didn't get from you, but from me."_

"Maxie!" Steve called out her name, the images that came to him when his eyes were closed, fading.

He could feel his hips jerking violently and then his muscles tightening, followed by his body vibrating and then the familiar flow of release coursing through his veins as he spilled over her hand. But as much as he was sweating and his heart was racing from her stimulating him, he couldn't shake what he saw.

There was a little boy who called him 'Pops' and her 'Mommy.' A little boy with blue eyes the same shade as his own, but they sparkled like hers. He had a dimpled chin, but sharp, high cheekbones.

His heart clenched; the coughing – loud and harsh – filling his ears, just like the sight of locking metal braces onto his rail thin legs was as clear as day in his mind.

_Malcolm._

He couldn't help himself, remembering the sight of her just barely swollen stomach, so he touched her there. She was flat, no curve or bump, and he swallowed thickly, his mind racing and struggling to process what he just saw.

"You okay?" She whispered, leaning in and gently touching his cheek.

He forced himself to remember – as if he could forget – the feeling of bliss she had just given him. Each flick of her wrist, glide of her fingers was perfect. Just like how she had kissed him; so full of intent and want, easily inviting his tongue inside to tangle with hers.

There was a lopsided grin on his face, and he was sure his eyes were glazed over, as he said, ""M better than okay, Bunny."

She didn't say anything about him calling her 'Bunny,' but he remembered it from, well, whatever it was that he saw in his head. She just accepted it, like it was natural like he did it all the time.

"That's what a girl likes to hear. Sooooooo," She unhooked her bra, baring her breasts to him for the first time, and his heart pounded recklessly inside his chest. "How about you make me feel better than, okay?"

_**kiss me like you wanna be loved**_

_**you wanna be loved**_

_**you wanna be loved**_

_**this feels like falling in love**_

_**falling in love**_

_**we're falling in love**_

_Note: In the flash forward, Steve and Maxie's son, Malcolm James Rogers – named after Mac and Bucky – has inherited Steve's old health problems before he was injected with Dr. Erskine's serum for 'Project Rebirth.'_


End file.
